PODCAST: SIMPLE KEYS TO CYBER SECURITY for Small Business
Cyber Security has become a top priority for small and mid-size companies. In today’s podcast, we spent a few minutes with eESI’s Ke Shen, who shared the top 3 areas of focus for small business; and, the top 4 things small business owners can do to protect themselves from cyber attacks.
Cybersecurity has become a growing area of concern for many business owners. And, when it comes to your chance of being a victim, no one with a connection to the internet is exempt. A December 2016 survey found that over half of all consumers experienced a cybersecurity incident in the preceding twelve months. Size doesn’t matter either. Small Business Trends reported that in 2015 43% of cyber attacks targeted small businesses.
What can you do to protect your business?
When a company suffers a data breach, the costs can be significant. The 2017 IBM sponsored Ponemon Cost of Data Breach Study reveals that the average cost for each compromised record is over $140. Lost time, damaged goodwill, and recovery costs are serious business. Yet according to eESI’s Ke Shen, limited resources prevent some small business owners from taking the necessary steps to protect their organization against cyber attacks.
In this week’s episode of the eESI Podcast, Cybersecurity Tips, Shen shares some simple steps that business owners can take right away to make their business’s systems more secure. Below are some of the highlights from that interview.
4 Simple Cybersecurity Tips for Small Businesses from eESI’s Ke Shen
- Educate your employees. Your defenses against cyber attacks are only as strong as your weakest link. Ensure that all employees know how to recognize a phishing attack. Teach them to check the source of the emails they receive, be suspicious of unexpected attachments in emails, and confirm the legitimacy of the URL before clicking on any links.
- Update your hardware and software. Most major software providers issue updates to respond to new cyber threats as they are detected. While updating your system can take time, recovery after a data breach or ransomware attack will take longer. Keep your antivirus software updated too.
- Backup your data. Backup your data to a secure location on a regular basis. In a worst-case scenario, having a backup will limit your losses and help you regain operational status quickly. Plus, if you have a complete backup of your data, a ransomware attack won’t stop you in your tracks.
- Limit access to your systems. Both employee and device vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers. To limit your exposure, restrict employees’ access to only those systems that they need to perform their jobs. And, to prevent your internet-connected devices, such as speakers and doorbells, from providing a gateway to your business systems, maintain those devices on a separate network.
These are just a few of the highlights from our conversation with Ke Shen.
If you’d like to learn more about cybersecurity and what you can do to protect your business, please listen to this week’s episode of eESI’s podcast, Cybersecurity Tips.
