Common Cyber Security Mistakes Made by Small Businesses

In the digital age, everyone needs to be on their guard against cybercriminals. With hacking and information theft at all-time highs, people who ignore these threats do so at their own peril. It’s particularly important for small businesses to take preventative measures against the machinations of cybercriminals. Since these enterprises are popular targets for hackers, their data is constantly at risk. Unfortunately, small businesses often fail to take the necessary steps in preventing data breaches, resulting in compromised financial information and employee records. Entrepreneurs who want to keep cybercriminals at bay would be wise to avoid the following blunders. 

Unsecured Networks 

These days, no Wi-Fi network should be without password protection. While this rule is important for home networks, it’s absolutely vital for those used by businesses. By leaving your office network unsecured, you’re essentially rolling out the welcome mat for hackers, data thieves and countless other cybercriminals. While manually signing in to your network may be slightly cumbersome for employees, this minor inconvenience is well worth the peace of mind it offers. 

Losing valuable data because of such a glaringly obvious oversight is not going to instill confidence in clients or investors. When it comes to cyber security, password-protecting your network is the absolute least you can do, and unfortunately, far too many small businesses fail to perform this simple yet crucial task. If your business is regularly trusted with financial documents or deals with contract management, you owe your clients a secure network.  

Unsecured Devices 

In addition to securing your office network, it’s imperative that every internet-enabled device used by your employees is provided with the same protection. However, some small businesses disapprove of this measure, as their employees simply can’t be bothered to password-protect their individual devices. 

Although this sentiment is somewhat understandable, it’s also incredibly misguided. Signing in to a device after powering it on should take no more than a few seconds, time that even your busiest employee can spare. Even people who regularly alternate between different devices throughout the workday have time to type in a few passwords. With this in mind, require your team members to password protect every device used in the workplace. These include devices used explicitly for work purposes and personal devices that are signed on to the office network. For added protection, consider imposing consequences on employees with unsecured devices.  

Lackluster Passwords 

Enabling password protection is only half the battle. For passwords to be truly effective, they need to be downright impossible to guess. Unfortunately, people often opt for the least safe options — i.e., birthdays, pet names, hometowns and common idioms. For an experienced hacker, ascertaining such passwords is a simple exercise. Conversely, passwords that consist of nonsense phrases and random strings of numbers frequently confound hackers. When walking your employees through your new security measures, make sure to emphasize this method of password creation. It may take certain team members a while to commit such passwords to memory, but this is where a tool for business password storage could come in handy to keep your security apparatus strong.

Failure to Back Up Data 

Since so many small businesses don’t believe a sweeping cyberattack could ever happen to them, they fail to back up their data on a consistent basis. However, in the absence of workable backups, businesses are often unable to function in the wake of hard-hitting cyberattacks. A skilled hacker can leave your network and/or data servers in total chaos, making it difficult for your enterprise to resume business after a breach. To prevent this fate from befalling your company, make a point of backing up your data at every available opportunity — and at least once per workday. 

It’s never a good idea to underestimate or outright ignore the many threats posed by cybercriminals. All it takes is a single hacker infiltration to throw an entire enterprise into disarray. All small businesses should make cyber security one of their foremost priorities. However, far too many enterprises fail to understand the importance of data protection until it’s too late. Small business owners who want to prevent their companies from falling prey to hackers can benefit from outfitting their networks with comprehensive security apparatuses and avoiding the mistakes discussed above.      

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