Small and medium-sized businesses are at risk. They are at risk because, more often than not, you cannot afford to hire and maintain an ongoing IT and security team to keep your data and digital tools safe and protected from hackers. It is for this reason that an estimated 60% of all small to medium-sized businesses are hacked. These hacks can range from being harmless to being devastating, and every hack carries the risk of ruining your company.
How Many Businesses Get Hacked
Cyber attacks hit nearly half of all businesses in the UK in 2016, costing each business approximately £1,500 in damages as a result. Though cybersecurity itself has seemingly improved, it will never be enough to completely eradicate the threat of a hack entirely. Hacker’s improve their methods, cybersecurity specialists improve security on their programs, and so on. It is a constant dance of hack, improve, hack, improve, and while you cannot predict every threat, you can make it more difficult for hackers to threaten your business.
The Increasing Risk of Being Hacked
The Internet of Things refers to the growing number of devices we have in our lives. For every item we have, we introduce more potential weaknesses for hackers to exploit. The same applies to new technologies, like Cryptocurrencies or cloud computing. Without knowing how to optimise your security system on every account and tool you use, you are putting your business at risk.
How to Prevent Hacks from Occurring
A hack can occur on every system that you own. It is for this reason that you need to adopt several preventative measures to reduce the risk. To start, update and keep every software and program updated. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use that system, you have to keep updating them to keep your entire system as secure as possible.
There are dozens of security measures you can use, and in truth using them all is ideal. To help you, go through this list of Azure security best practices to keep your cloud account and data safe, secure, and break-free.
Back Up Your Data
Following the list of best practices will help you clamp down on your cloud security, but that doesn’t mean you should stop backing up your own data. By having an offline data store, you can better protect your business and have a backup in case the worse happens. Just remember to be wary of the physical elements. Keeping your data stores in a basement that floods is not a good idea.
Train Your Employees
Don’t assume that your employees are tech savvy. Most security measures today take place entirely behind the scenes. That has created a false sense of security in most, meaning that far too few of us are worried about accidentally downloading a virus. By holding annual or bi-annual workshops, you can train your employees on cybersecurity so that they don’t inadvertently fall prey to a phishing scam or worse.
Don’t let your business suffer, and adopt the right security tools and methods to keep your data safe. Do this, and you can instead focus on growing your business and becoming a bigger success.
