When it comes to cybercrime, hackers don’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter if it is a multi-national company with tens of thousands of employees, or a mom working from your living room, hackers are only interested in one thing—making money by getting your data.
What may come as a surprise to many small business owners is that some of the smallest businesses contain the most highly sought after (and profitable) Personally Identifiable Information (PII)—things like credit cards, home loans, financial investments, medical histories and more. Think of it this way, if you transact, communicate or engage in any type of business online, you are a potential target. And, to make matters worse, small businesses typically lack the resources (including time, money and expertise) necessary to fully protect themselves from cyber criminals.
In fact, in a recent survey of small businesses around the world, Malwarebytes found that, in the first quarter of 2017 alone, businesses encountered 165 percent more malware attacks than they had experienced in the same quarter the previous year. Even more alarming was the total increase in ransomware incidents—increasing 231 percent from 2016 to 2017.
The dramatic increase of attacks on small businesses is serious cause for concern. Malware and ransomware attacks allow cyber criminals to secretly remove data from a company’s machine, track keystrokes to identify passwords, hold business-critical information hostage and demand that a company pays to get it back, and more.
But by far the biggest problem for most small businesses is the financial burden—and reputational consequences—of having your intellectual property or customers’ data compromised. The US National Cyber Security Alliance found that 60 percent of small companies are unable to sustain their business within six months of a cyber crime attack.
So, what is a small business owner to do?
Unfortunately, if you’re like most small business owners, you don’t have the means or resources to employ a full-time IT staff, let alone part-time security staff. It is likely that you have gaps in your security, leaving you at a higher risk of attack compared to larger companies. Fortunately, there are a number of easy steps small business owners can take to keep themselves secure.
- Check-in on your passwords. Update and change all default and blank passwords on hardware, software and websites. Use a variety of letters, numbers and symbols when creating passwords to make them difficult to crack.
- Put a lock-down on file access. Remove administrator privileges from your computers to prevent unauthorized installation of malware.
- Check for updates. If your computer isn’t already set up to scan for security updates and program patches, check your settings and schedule regular routine updates.
- Back up, back up, back up. One of the best ways to stay safe (especially from ransomware) is to have regular back-ups of your data. While it might be cumbersome to think about plugging in a separate drive to back up data and then disconnecting it when not in use, Better yet, leverage a cloud backup service. You’ll thank yourself later when you need a clean version of your data.
- Get protected. While you may not have the resources to hire a full-time security staff, there are numerous tools available for small businesses to achieve a surprising amount of security effectiveness with minimal additional cost. When looking for a security solution, look for one that provides malware detection and remediation, blocks malicious websites and ransomware and includes exploit protection in a single solution.
Remember, you are your own best advocate when it comes to securing your business. Fighting off cybercriminals may seem like a daunting task, but you can drastically improve your chances of staying protected by educating yourself on the latest threats and best practices. After all, your business depends on it.
