Some business owners fail to realize the importance of protecting their businesses from cyberattacks. Statistics show that almost 50 percent of small and medium-sized businesses have no security measures in place to protect against such attacks. The reason behind this is the lack of knowledge about what a cyberattack truly is. Some business owners may think that online threats are only limited to phishing scams or the like.
This article will discuss how business owners can protect their businesses from cyberattacks and why it is important to do so.
Boost Your System Defenses
When it comes to protecting your business from cyber-related crimes, there are three types of possible attacks you need to prepare for: DoS (Denial Of Service), DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), and Ransomware. A DoS attack overwhelms a server with requests until it collapses under pressure, while a DDoS attack is an attempt at achieving the same by using more than one computer to attack the server. Ransomware is one of the most common attacks, where businesses are locked out of their own servers until they pay a hefty fee for decrypting their data. To properly protect your business from these attacks you must be aware that it’s not enough to have anti-virus software installed and updated on all company computers as well as firewalls and other protective measures, but also have cloud managed IT services and backup strategies. In fact, having strict policies in place as well as regularly backing up important files will keep you protected from any cyberattack. It’s essential to know how long backups should last and what to do with them once they become outdated because only then can you handle an attack any way you see fit without losing valuable information or financial assets.
Establish an Incident Response Plan
Another important aspect of cyber security is having an incident response plan in place, which means you need to actually prepare for how your business will react if it’s attacked. To do so you should identify all possible threats and implement the best strategies to overcome them. For example, companies whose livelihood depends on their websites might consider getting a second website ready in case the main one becomes unusable due to an attack; this way they can at least temporarily continue operating until they manage to address the problems. Furthermore, you should always be prepared that an attack could also come from within – this is why employee training is essential when it comes to the proper protection of business computers against cyberattacks because employees are often the weakest in the security chain.
Regularly Update Your Systems
Do not wait for a cyberattack to happen before you update your systems. You will regret it if you do not catch the cyber attack before hackers take control of your system. When there is a cyberattack in progress, people become very nervous and are scared that their business will suffer losses in this fast-paced world.
If you have updated your system in time, then you can minimize or prevent potential problems to occur when attacked by cybercriminals. Accordingly, keep yourself up to date with the latest technologies at all times and be on alert for any suspicious behavior from employees and customers. Also, check any new software updates frequently and install them as soon as possible after they become available. This is critical because these days hackers continue to release new types of cyber attack programs that may be released with the sole purpose of bypassing the latest security updates.
Start an Employee Training Program
Employees can take part in your defensive strategy and augment your defenses against cyberattacks. The training program should provide an overall overview of security best practices designed to protect your business, including what constitutes a threat, how employees can get infected with malware, and common techniques for protecting themselves against attacks.
The consequences of allowing employee negligence or ignorance can be dire: if employees don’t understand what they’re doing, the business becomes vulnerable. Thus it is of utmost importance that each member of staff receives adequate information on what they should do to keep themselves safe online. A training program makes the measures of protection clear and concise so that everyone knows how to stay secure in their personal lives as well as when using company assets along with how to raise an alert in case they suspect something fishy is going on.
A strategic and proactive approach can help you prepare for business disruptions such as cyberattacks. However, there can still be instances of system breaches and random attacks getting through. Make it a point to take the worst-case scenario into consideration by making sure you’ve prepared everything on paper because once a cyberattack occurs, there’s no time left for making a plan on the spot. If you take steps to prevent one all the time and identify possible vulnerabilities, however, you’ll have a clear image of what needs to be done.
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