Protect Your Business From a Security Breach – If you own a small business, you can’t possibly assume that your business will not encounter a data security breach due to the activities of cyber criminals and internet hackers. According to the 2017 cyber security breach survey that we have seen, most small, medium, and large-sized companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and across European countries have suffered from one form of a security breach or the other. The survey is a clear testament to the fact that there is no business that is immune to the attacks of cyber security breaches.
Regardless of the size of the business that you own, it is important to put measures in place so that you can protect your business from the prying eyes of data and cybercriminals. The disadvantages of not protecting your business from data theft can be overwhelming, especially if you operate a business in this digital age.
5 Tips To Protect Your Business From a Security Breach
Cybercriminals do not need so much information from your business or your personal details to pry into your business data. All they need is a little loophole in your business processes and all your data that you have not backed up will be gone.
In this case, your customers, stakeholders, and even your employees will lose confidence in your business as well as your management team. Therefore, it is important to always put high-powered measures in place to protect your data from data hackers as well as Internet criminals.
So, in this article, we will hold you by the hands and walk you through the top 5 tips you should consider integrating into your database and business processes in order to protect your business from data breaches.
Let’s get started!
#1. Develop a Prevention and a Response Plan
One of the best ways to protect your business from a data breach is to develop a prevention and response plan. A prevention and response plan is important in the sense that the plan would help you prevent potential malware attacks on your business database. And in the event of a possible attack, the plan will spell out the different steps that you will take to restore the data that has been attacked.
Therefore you as a business person need to research the best practices when it comes to data breach prevention and response plans, and thus create a plan that you can communicate with all of your employees including your important stakeholders.
Whenever a data breach occurs, this prevention and response plan that you have developed will be the first point of call to help you navigate the process of responding to an attack. It is also important for the database prevention and response plan to have a response plan in the event of a malware attack or natural crisis like earthquake and fire incidents. Additionally, the plan should also capture the different ways to change the password that can be used to access your database management system.
#2. Educate Your Employees about Security Risks
Another important step to take in your journey to prevent your business from becoming vulnerable to the attacks of cybercriminals and internet hackers is to educate all of your employees regardless of their rank and position about what security risks are all about.
Once your employees are aware of what security risks are about, they will also learn how to protect their personal data and your business data should a natural attack or crisis occur. In a small business environment, you already know that trust can be an important issue particularly when it comes to data breaches.
One single click from an employee can result in a data breach that will cost your company a huge amount of money to replace those data that were not backed up. Therefore, you need to develop different training programs for your employees on the need to be informed of the potential attacks that are imminent in the face of the digital economy that we are currently operating.
You may also want to include the concept of artificial intelligence in their training program because the concept of AI is the latest technology that most businesses now use to prevent their business from being attacked. Intelliworx can be of help in this regard.
In addition to training your employees, do not forget to also develop a policy such that if an employee exits your business, other employees can remove the details or name of the employee who has gone. The bottom line is for you to always educate your employees so that they will become acquainted with the latest happening in the world of technology and also how to prevent data attacks.
#3. Create a Remote Work Policy
If your employees work remotely, one of the best ways you can prevent a data breach from occurring in your business or workplace is to create a remote work policy that will guide your employees to work remotely. As a matter of fact, developing and also implementing a remote work policy is very important for any business owner in the present-day digital age.
In the remote work policy that you will create, ensure you clearly state the required tools that your employees will use to separate personal and business data or files. Remember, artificial tools like sentence restructure or password strength tools can be very tempting for your employees to mix up their devices or hardware when working remotely. But if there is a remote work policy in place, it will clearly highlight this issue to them. They will definitely be guided on ways to separate personal and business data.
#4. Make Sure You Have Security Software and Encrypt Data
The next thing to consider if you are looking to protect your business from a data breach is to ensure that you have security software and encrypted data in different binary formats as using some text to online binary conversion tools. As data threats continue to evolve, you also need to evolve your security software as well as ensure they are up to date. As a matter of fact, you should make it a policy to periodically review your security software so that you will determine whether they are in line with the latest trends.
Encryption, antivirus software, firewalls, and detection software are all important tools for you to keep in place to help you protect your business from a data breach.
#5. Invest in a Data Breach Reporting Solution
Lastly, you should also consider investing in a data breach reporting solution so as to have a private assessment of your business and also suggest the best measures to protect the business from a data breach.
This solution will help your business adjust and improve your business protocol so that criminal or cyber hackers will not have access to your business data with ease.
Final Thoughts
And there you have it. You can see that the process of securing your business from the prying eyes of data is very simple, direct, and straightforward especially if you know where to start from. If you are able to implement all the tips that we have highlighted in this article, you will be one step away from protecting your business from a data breach.
