Best Cybersecurity Solutions For SMBs

There are many entrepreneurs in the United States who love owning their own small-to-medium businesses. However much they love it, though, they will all tell you that it’s challenging. Owning a business means being responsible for everything, from marketing to hiring, day-to-day operations, and everything in between. Security is also a big part of it. Then, of course, there is the physical security of the business, but also the digital security. 

More and more data is stored online every year. Businesses of every size have credit card information and personal and health data on their clients that they are responsible for keeping safe. With so much data available in the digital sphere, it’s no wonder that cyber attacks are a daily occurrence. Every business must take appropriate steps to protect themselves and their clients. Here are some of the best cybersecurity solutions for SMBs. 

Cyber Security Training

Provide your team with all of the training they need to contribute to a data-secure workplace. The vast majority of successful attacks aren’t from hackers accessing the network. They are mostly from users who willingly download malicious software or give their passwords away by accident. Make sure that your entire staff understands what a dangerous email looks like and how they should handle it. They also need to understand why cyber security is so important so that they will get better buy-in. 

Strong Passwords

Criminals can get passwords in many ways. For one, they run data-mining schemes on social media to try to get people to uncover common passwords, such as pet names, childhood street names, and favorite pastimes. Once they have that information, they can start trying to access everything that a user would, assuming that the passwords will be similar. The strongest passwords are random, have a collection of letters, numbers, and special characters, and mix in upper and lowercase letters. This can be hard to manage, but you can hire IT services in San Antonio to manage your passwords and assist with your overall network security. 

Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication means having more layers of security on top of a simple password. For instance, you can have data portals that require a separate code to be inputted on top of the password already provided. This code is randomly generated every time a user logs in and is sent to the user’s phone. That way, anyone looking to access the portal would need the password and the phone to be successful. 

Culture of Cybersecurity

Along with training, try to instill a culture in your business around cybersecurity. It should be on everyone’s minds every single day. Depending on the size of your business, a data breach could cost you hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. In addition, you will have to deal with lawsuits, the cost of getting the data secure again, and a loss of reputation. Many SMBs would not be able to recover from such a situation. Cybersecurity should be an aspect of everything they do, much like safety is. 

Software Updates

You know those software updates you get on your laptop or mobile device that you ignore because they are working fine as it is? Well, you should stop doing that. Those software updates aren’t just about adding features or improving performance. They also come with important security patches that plug gaps where hackers may be able to infiltrate. But unfortunately, when you ignore those updates, you leave yourself and your network open to attacks. 

Back-Up Your Data

One of the most common attacks is a ransomware attack. This is when a user downloads a file with a code embedded into it that will lock out everyone from a network. It will then send a message saying that the organization must pay a ransom to reaccess the data. This can be crippling for an SMB. However, if you have regularly backed up your data to a hard drive or to a third-party cloud service, you can easily access your data again. There may be some missing information that was entered since the last update, but you will be much better off than if you lost access to everything. You also don’t want to have to pay ransom and encourage further criminal activity. 

VPNs

Working remotely has never been more common, and we have the technology to make it easy. However, the fact is that home networks are not as secure as commercial ones, and you have less control over them. A solution to this is to provide all of your remote employees with a virtual private network (VPN). you can set how secure it is, and they should not be accessing anything on the work-related web without going through the VPN. This will make sure that everything is protected, even when someone is working remotely. 

While cyber threats are on the rise, you can take reasonable steps to protect your business. By employing these strategies, you can keep your data safe from cyber-attacks.