Business management is like a juggler’s job. You need to keep multiple balls up in the air at the same time. You drop one ball and that’s it. Game over. As dogged and focused as you are with your marketing efforts, you also need to look into the less prestigious aspects of your business. Take, for instance, cybersecurity management.
Any business with an online presence ought to practice top-notch cybersecurity management. You do not want to fall victim to a cyberattack that compromises the integrity of your technology. Consider what happened to SolarWinds.
SolarWinds is a U.S.-based company. They provide essential software to businesses, non-government organizations, and government offices. One of its software updates was compromised last year. The cyberattack led to SolarWinds’ 18,000 clients getting exposed to malicious malware. The worse part is how even the clients of those clients were not spared from the incident too, their data compromised as a result.
Not only was it a PR disaster for the IT company. It can also lead to huge financial losses once those compromised organizations decide to file legal complaints.
This is why businesses must stay proactive. For example, you can avail of archiving solutions that will give your cybersecurity management a boost. Such a service allows online data security and data monitoring and loss prevention, to name a few.
Moreover, you need to be wary of the common mistakes that can easily turn you into easy prey for cyberattackers. Here are some of those mistakes.
Internet and cloud usage
The Internet has allowed easier communication and collaboration. It also allowed widespread data breach. Your employees must be aware of the risks they might be exposing your business to whenever they visit certain sites or use a cloud service for storing sensitive company information.
Of course, you cannot restrict your staff from using the Internet. The best you can do is ensure that you have reliable technology in place that will filter those sites that can compromise your cybersecurity. It also pays to zero in on paid cloud services that you know will take good care of your data.
Letting your employees use their own device
You are probably a lenient boss. You do not mind if your staff do their job on their personal computer. That’s all well and good until you realize that your employee’s laptop does not have the same protection as the official company-issued computer.
If we’re talking about a mid-level manager with enough sensitive information about your business, the risks are even greater. You do not know where that laptop goes online. And for all you know some malicious entity’s already actively spying on your company data via your employee’s personal device. So refrain from letting your staff bring their own device to work. Ideally, your entire staff uses encrypted computers.
Remote staff
If you are sending your staff home to do their job remotely, at least make sure they will connect to a safe Wi-Fi. Do the necessary precautionary measures first, especially if you have sensitive company data to protect. Have your employee answer critical questions. For instance, will they be connecting to a personal as opposed to a public Wi-Fi?
Lack of security training
Your entire staff should know about the cybersecurity threats common these days. If you asked them about phishing, they should be able to answer what it’s about and how it happens. Employees should also be made aware of a new trend in cybersecurity called social engineering.
Social engineering is where malicious entities get close to a target in real life and gain their trust. Once the rapport is built, they will strike and derive any information they can get from the compromised individual to use in their nefarious plans of accessing vital corporate data.
Outdated technology
Your cybersecurity technology should be updated regularly. Malicious codes evolve and outdated technology won’t recognize updated codes.
In the past, hackers do what they do to assert their tech dominance. They only want to build their street cred and be the object of admiration for techno geeks the world over. Now things have changed. Gone are the days when cyberattacks are done for prestige. Now they’re done for profit. In 2019 alone, financial losses due to these attacks reached $1.8 billion. Garmin, another compromised business, had to pay a ransom of $10 million to hackers.
If you do not wish to suffer the same fate as the companies alluded to in this piece, it’s high time your review the technology you use for cybersecurity. Any areas of improvement should be improved ASAP. That’s a smart investment on your end. The potential risks are way costlier.
