Is Your Business Safe Online?
Cybersecurity is a growing issue in the modern business world. The evolution of technology has meant more businesses are online than ever, and whilst this has been a blessing for a company bottom line, it has meant a sharp increase in the number of cyberattacks on online companies. Cybersecurity is not a joke, and assuming because you have firewalls and password on your internal IT systems you are safe is naïve. For companies that have an online shop, cybersecurity is a very important ecommerce feature and online protection is at an all-time high. If you don’t have the right protocols in place, you are putting your customers at risk as well as yourself as a company for fraud. It doesn’t matter whether you have a large online shop or a small one, there is always a risk and it should never be a risk you are willing to take.
The internet is the perfect place for companies to set up and market their products. Not only are they going to be open to the globe, but the companies who are solely online also manage to play their costs right down so they are cheaper to run. The thing is, being solely online can open your company up to threats you didn’t know were possible. There is a dark side to the internet, and there is a small group of people in the world that will do anything they can to exploit your company. Hacking has been on the rise massively since the birth of the internet, penetrating as far as the White House and other political platforms. Groups that have learned extensive coding and code breaking have busted firewalls for things as superficial as giving themselves the best grades for their degree, which you can read about in more detail here. The point, is that where there is an online company or website, there is a threat of having it breached. This is the same for a business that is online and it is up to you as the company to ensure that you have taken every possible step to ensure that you do not fall victim to an online threat like that.
Did you know that smaller online stores and companies are at a bigger threat from cyberattacks than larger corporations such as financial services? This is mainly because there is LESS security in place for a smaller company, and therefore the advantage to be taken is greater. Larger companies often have data security and protocols in place that are watched at all times to prevent attack and this is not something that smaller ecommerce sites have. The thing is, smaller online stores still have sensitive information and data to watch and the statistics show that one in five small businesses fall victim to fraud every single year. This doesn’t just attack their profits or intellectual data, but it can shut them down, closing businesses that have worked hard simply due to the greed of criminals. It’s not just the financial results that have to be considered. A brand bases its whole marketing campaign on its reputation, which gets destroyed the moment hackers get a hold of sensitive information.
Think about it, clients and customers have put their data and sensitive information to a company – if this gets hacked, you’ve just lost all those clients and all those customers, ruining your profit lines and making your company go bust. Clients will not endorse a company that doesn’t take care of its online security effectively and customers will not continue to shop where their information could be compromised. If you use the right tools from the very beginning, you can minimise fraud and hacking and give your online security iron-strength. A company that is risk aware is one that is prepared, and if your company is one that has an online ecommerce store attached to the website, you have to be more vigilant than anyone. Mitigating the online threats that are out there, and will continue to be out there for the foreseeable, is the only way forward for a company that relies on an online ecommerce store for business. Keeping your business secure at all times should be a top priority for your company, and if it isn’t then it’s time to start looking into the extra security measures that you can take.
Passwords are an obvious solution to any company who is worth their salt, but it can be very difficult to keep track of these. Having a dedicated IT team on your internal books to keep up to date on your security systems and programs is a smart decision. They can also keep a track of all passwords that are used by all members of staff, which takes the pressure off you. It’s a habit for most people to keep their passwords the same, but if you had internal breach of your systems by someone who works with you closely, then it’s easy for them to take you for granted if your password is an easy guess. You need to mix it up and have case-sensitive passwords that are lengthy so that people are not able to guess easily. Don’t just stick to mother’s maiden names and birthdays, make it a complicated line of numbers and symbols that can protect your data.
If there’s one thing that not enough owners make a priority, it’s training their staff about online safety. Owning a business means that you have a responsibility to adequately arm your staff with the tools they need to protect themselves and you in your business. They need to know that when they go online, they need to do more than just protect your interests, but understand that by protecting your data they are keeping themselves in a job. There is never a room for a mistake that leaves a glaring gap in your business and if this happens, you need to be able to have staff beyond the IT team that can jump on it. You would need a social media manager who is keeping an eye on the staff and how they represent your company online. Put together a list of items to address at a staff meeting about the use of the internet at work, and make training a twice-yearly event on the company calendar. Things change in business all the time, it’s good to keep people updated.
A contingency plan isn’t just for the army. If you are running a company that is purely online, backing everything up is imperative for the smooth and safe running of the business. Life gets in the way – even for a busy and thriving company. Having the right security systems in place is one thing, but if one of these fails and you are not quite on top of it, then you will end up with a huge breach in your systems and vulnerable to further attack from outside sources. It’s not uncommon for businesses to allow staff to work from home and log in remotely, nor is it uncommon for people to work on the move with mobile devices. You have to, as a company, be prepared for any one of these to fail. Get the right business insurance to cover you for devices used outside the office, and ensure that you are covered in the event of theft. There’s no excuse not to back-up your data if you are running a business.
When you have remote staff working and catching up on emails, discourage them from using free Wi-Fi ports. While it may be tempting, even for you, these are unsecured lines that anyone and everyone can use. It’s a very dangerous route to go down and can lead to a breach in your data security. There are more and more news stories about these now, as malicious characters use hotspots to lure people into free Wi-Fi and then once you have joined, they then have free access to all the info on their computer. This type of breach cannot happen as your online data is then compromised. Make sure that your staff understand that these hotspots are fine for general browsing, but not for linking to the company network. Having a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is crucial here, as you can ask staff to link in via that instead of just through Wi-Fi.
Lastly, the one thing you do need to think about is the very people you work with. You could trust every single person you’ve interviewed and recruited, but that doesn’t matter if they are the ones behind any data breach. Working inside a company, hacking is easier and a lot of the documented cases of data breaches of online security often come from inside the walls. The information then gets sold onto competitors. Do not let this happen before you take action and be proactive about the people you hire. Keep an eye with your IT team on what people are looking at online and on the company database. Constant vigilance is better than naivety!