6 Steps to Create a Cybersecurity Plan for Small Business
In this digitally driven world, cyber threats are a fact of life for every business. As long as your business connects to the internet, it’s a very good idea to consider how vulnerable you are to cyber attacks.
Now, if you’re a small business you may think cybercriminals won’t bother with you, because it makes more sense that they would only focus on the big players, where the big money is. Unfortunately that’s not the case, as shown by the following data from the last year, compiled by Fundera:
- 43% of small businesses are targeted by cyber criminals .
- 60% of small businesses that are attacked go out of business within 6 months.
- Cyber attacks cost small and medium businesses $2.2 million annually.
- 47% of small businesses said they have no understanding of how to protect themselves against cyber attacks.
Although cyber criminals have larger amounts of data and information to steal from larger businesses and organizations, the networks of small businesses tend to be less secure, making it easier to attack them.
But, there’s also good news: all small businesses need to do to protect their data is to create and implement a small business cyber security plan.
Simply put, a cyber security plan is a strategy that covers your employees, data, emails, SaaS applications and devices.
The Benefits of a Cyber Security Plan
Benefit #1: Customer Trust
Data breaches can hurt and even completely destroy your business’s reputation, leading to losing the trust of your customers.
It’s only natural. If you find out that a company that provides you a service or product can’t protect your data, would you want to be their customer? Would you trust them again?
With a proper cyber security plan for small businesses, you can identify critical risks, always be one step ahead of the attacks and continue to build your customers’ trust.
Benefit #2: Capitalizing on Cyber Security Risk Management
Small businesses that both identify and prioritize risk, are better prepared to properly handle cybers issues.
And this makes for a great marketing opportunity, because businesses that have an effective cyber security in place find that their customers are more willing to receive marketing updates, knowing that their data is secured.
Benefit #3: Revenue Loss Prevention
Although cyber attacks impact almost every aspect of the day-to-day operations of the business, the most significant effect is financial.
In fact, the global average of the cost of data breach is $3.86 million. In addition, businesses might face significant fines as they are held liable under data privacy laws and the cost of clearing the cyber threat is very high.
Benefit #4: Potential Insurance Requirements
As state regulations require businesses to notify customers of any personal information data breach and although every insurance policy has its own set of criteria, many insurance companies now require businesses to implement some sort of cyber security plan.
How To Create A Cybersecurity Plan
Having a strong cyber security plan for small businesses that is based on best practices is critical for the stability and resilience of the business.
Small businesses can protect themselves from cyber crime by following these steps:
- Identify Cyber Risks and Improve Posture
Every business faces its own unique threats, so it is important to first assess the cyber vulnerabilities of your business.
Before you identify the business’s potential cyber threats you won’t be able to determine how to properly protect your data and face the business and cyber security challenges.
- Keep Business Communications Channels Secure (i.e Emails and cloud applications)
It is critical to safeguard the information shared within the business. The most basic measure is encrypting communications between people inside the business and with customers. This includes email, phone and other remote communications.
In addition, there are other measures you can take. For example, make sure that employees don’t inadvertently expose sensitive information, such as writing their password on a post-it note, password protect your calls and implement strong password policies.
- Apply Security Measures
protect your digital assets by securing your external and internal network. If your network is not protected, it can be easily used by cyber criminals to access all your business data.
Network security measures should include ensuring SSL , adding SPF, closing all your open ports and making sure that your external connections are encrypted and undiscoverable.
- Keep Your Data Safe
Whether it’s fraud or attempting to steal users’ personal information, protecting your customer data is crucial to your business’s longevity.
There are a few steps you can take:
1. Collect only vital data to both minimize the value of your customers’ data and maximize customer confidence.
2. Limit the number of employees that can access the data you collect from users.
3. Use password management tools that make it easier to use more complex passwords and store them safely.
4. Install an efficient security tool to protect all the data you store.
5. Ensure that all customer data is securely backed up and can be restored quickly.
- Ensure All Devices Are Safe And Protected
Secure your smart devices by reading the privacy policy to understand which data the devices collect, where it stores it and whether it shares or uses it; regularly update the software to ensure it is optimally protected; check the device’s default security settings and change them if necessary; learn how to disable the device’s camera and microphone so that you can increase privacy when needed; when you sell a device used by you or someone else in you business, make sure to remove all the data from it.
- Consider Using An Automated Solution
As traditional cyber solutions, such as firewall and antivirus, can no longer fully protect businesses, using a holistic cyber security tool can cover all your cyber security needs. And it doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.
You need to get a modern solution to protect your business so you can focus on what matters. How Guardz Can Help
A great security solution is one that has a minimal impact on the day-to-day operations of the business, but still protects everything that matters: users,data, web browsing, devices, emails and cloud applications.
Guardz is a smart, affordable all-in-one solution that provides real-time protection, identifies cyber threats like online fraud, phishing, malware, ransomware and data breach, and educates your staff on how to mitigate cyber risks.
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