If you receive any amounts of payments or make transfers online, protecting your business should be an inherent part of your daily activities. Today, digital information theft is the most reported fraud and is bigger than ever.
Hackers, identity thieves, and scammers now prey on businesses, both large, (ones with a lot of valuable information) and small ones that are vulnerable and defenseless.
Breaches including spam, cybersecurity, and computer crash expose all types of businesses to insurance claims, lawsuits, cash flow fluctuation, among other factors that could quickly damage the operations of your enterprise or wipe it out completely.
In this regard, several practices can be employed to safeguard your business from most of the online threats.
Use A Virtue Private Network (VPN) On Public WI-FI
One good thing about online businesses is that employees can work from anywhere, whether at the beach, coffee shop, among other places of choice. The biggest concern with using public WI-FI is the ease of hackers on the same network.
Hackers can use any software that enables them to monitor traffic and the login details of the users connected to the same WI-FI. Notice that public WI-FI is a major security risk, meaning that your emails and all other details can be accessed in plain text.
It is, therefore, crucial that every employee uses a VPN while working away from the office. This is an app that can be installed on your devices to encrypt your internet connection and protect your business.
Use Encryption Technology On All Your Devices
Encryption is the process used to change data in a way that makes it unreadable except by the people processing special knowledge, also known as key. This technology allows you to safeguard your data securely by making it inaccessible.
You need to protect customer data such as names and credit card numbers given that penalties can be massive. Should you choose a self-hosted platform, ensure you have an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate.
While governments use it to secure classified data, businesses use it to protect their corporate secrets and guard against identity theft.
Choose A Secure Hosting Service
Every successful business has a professional website. However, choosing the wrong web hosting company to secure your wireless networks won’t be saved by powerful features or a great design.
All your online platforms must be hosted by a reliable web hosting company, one that is PCI compliant. It is the only way to be sure that your payment processes are secure and can’t be accessed by hackers.
As much as free hosting sounds good, do not consider this option for your business. Not only will you have shared server space and low speeds, but also be exposed to the risk of insecurity.
It might do your business more good to choose a Webhosting service provider who can offer your online business with an SSL certificate. The certificate ensures that the communication between your site and browsers is encrypted.
Enable 2-Factor Authentication
Apart from using unique and strong passwords on all your online platforms, the other top line of defense is enabling 2FA.
With a 2 Factor authentication, you will need to use a unique code each time you log in. It means that even if a hacker gets your login details, they will not manage to access your data without your authenticator app code.
If you use Gmail, for instance, for most of your accounts, a hacker would then access your Twitter, Facebook, among other online accounts by using the password reset feature.
Back-Up Your Data
Safety in every business is never a certainty no matter the measures taken. Backing up your corporate information is a good place to start. Doing so makes it easy for you to recover in case your firm succumbs to a cyber-attack.
Backing up your business information means you still get to recover lost data when hackers succeed in launching a cyber-attack. Disperse this data across different storage systems, and remember to stick it in a hided USB stick. Implement cloud storage services.
Educate Your Employees
At least 60 percent of all security breaches occur internally. Employees should be allowed only to use the software needed in their activities. They should not access all the data systems of the company.
Before installing any software in their individual office computers, they should get permission first. No matter the size of the business, employees should be educated on security issues.
Even if your business has the best security software, if your employees are not educated on cybersecurity, it won’t work.
They may not be aware that links and emails can cause severe damage to the company. Train them on the importance of strong passwords and also talk about anti-virus programs that can be used to clean their devices.
It might be easy to start an online business, but making it sustainable and profitable can be complicated. Every business is faced with threats, which makes security a critical aspect. Take advantage of IT security software solutions to ensure your business operations are safeguarded.
