These days, digital security is just as, if not more so, important than physical security. Businesses have to think of how they can secure sensitive information in their physical space, as well as any sensitive documents or client information that may exist in digital spaces. While the continued improvement of digital technology continues to help small businesses get off the ground, it also introduces new problems and new vulnerabilities. For instance, we’ve all gone through the trainings to detect phishing emails. But these kinds of strategies don’t exist in a vacuum. Sure, you may have breezed through your cybersecurity training when you first started your job, but it’s very likely that the methods that you learned to identify in that training are already outdated. Unfortunately, the stress of having to constantly monitor and keep track of what new ways scammers or intruders are using to gain access to your system is almost as stressful as running your business itself.
This is a stress that we’re all likely very familiar with. At Payday HCM, we’re constantly receiving questions from clients about what steps they can take to ensure that their systems are as secure as possible. And, as helpful as the internet is, it can also be overwhelming, and finding simple, straightforward strategies for small businesses looking to attain a level of digital security can prove difficult. As such, we want to ensure that small businesses have access to the resources they need to prepare for any sort of digital threat—regardless of whether they are our client or not.
So, in this article, we’ll be going over some cybersecurity tips for small businesses and different methods for preventing possible account takeovers or data breaches. Firstly, we’ll dive into the statistics of these kinds of events occurring, giving you a better understanding of what it is exactly that’s at risk and how common something like this is. Then, we’ll get into the different ways that you can ensure your business is secure, from two-factor authentication to hosting regular training sessions. By the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of the steps you can take to ensure your business’s digital presence is secure.
In this article, you will learn:
- How Often Do Cyberattacks Occur?
- Tips For Small Businesses To Strengthen Your Cybersecurity
- What Do I Do If I’ve Experienced A Cyberattack?
How Often Do Cyberattacks Occur?
Firstly, we’ll go over the data on how often cyberattacks occur to small businesses and how susceptible you may be.
The Likelihood Of Cyberattacks
Using the word “cyberattacks” can make these kinds of online threats seem somewhat far off or improbable. Unfortunately, cyberattacks, in their many different forms, are much more likely than you might expect: according to a cybersecurity report from Microsoft, one in three small-to-medium-sized businesses have experienced a cyberattack.
It’s easy to believe that potential threats may not focus on smaller-sized businesses and instead choose to target larger corporations. This isn’t the case: since these businesses lack the tools and internal IT infrastructure to quickly handle these types of threats, cyberattacks are still likely to occur to smaller businesses.
How Much Can Cyberattacks Cost My Business?
It’s easy to understand how these kinds of attacks can affect businesses in terms of loss of personal data or digital security, but it’s much harder to quantify those losses into actual numbers. Microsoft’s cybersecurity report, though, has collected average costs from different cyberattacks to help you better understand the potential cost of a data breach.
In general, cyberattacks can cost a business anywhere from $250,000 all the way up to almost $7 million. For things like data recovery or investigation into the attack, the average cost sits around $78,000, while the cost when it comes to things like fines can be around $20,000. These costs can quickly add up and create even larger problems for your business.
Tips For Small Businesses To Strengthen Your Cybersecurity
Now that we have a better understanding of the risk of cyberattacks as well as the potential cost of one occurring, we’ll dive into some steps you can take to mitigate the chances of one occurring.
Strong Passwords, Two-Factor, And Encryption
There are a number of different steps you can take to help prevent data breaches from occurring. At the top of that list is ensuring everyone in your organization sets strong passwords and uses two-factor authentication. These are the simplest, most proven methods for preventing any sort of phishing scam or other cyber threats.
Businesses can also encrypt their data to ensure it’s harder for potential hackers to steal or gain access to anything. Encryption is something that is offered by a number of companies and cloud storage providers and involves scrambling digital data and making it inaccessible unless you have the proper “key.”
A big element when it comes to cyberattacks is your Wi-Fi network. More than likely, this is how bad actors or potential threats may be accessing your information. When you set up your internet router, be sure to change the default name and password and disable remote management. You’ll also want to ensure your router is equipped with WPA2 or WPA3 encryption.
Offer Regular Training And Create A Culture Of Security
On top of setting and regularly resetting passwords as well as using two-factor authentication and encryption, offering your employees—as well as yourself—regular training is crucial to preventing any possible cyberattacks. On top of this, it’s important to create a culture of security within your organization, encouraging employees to utilize safe online practices at work and at home.
There are plenty of online options for free trainings that offer good insights into spotting phishing attempts and staying aware online. It can be helpful to establish one employee as a security program manager who can serve as the main point of contact for cybersecurity issues and host regular trainings. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency also has a number of tabletop exercises to help train your employees in case of a potential cyberattack.
What Do I Do If I’ve Experienced A Cyberattack?
Now that we’ve familiarized you with the chances of a cyberattack occurring, as well as good preventative measures, we’ll go over what steps to take in case one should occur to you.
Establishing A Policy And A Framework
On top of the other preventative measures listed above, you want to ensure your business has a policy in place that explains the proper standard operating procedure for if a cyberattack occurs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology provides a free cybersecurity framework that outlines six core functions that your cybersecurity policy should revolve around:
- Govern - the establishment of a cybersecurity policy and the organization’s commitment to cybersecurity and actions taken therein.
- Identify - assessing your organization’s current cybersecurity risks.
- Protect - actions and methods taken to secure and defend your organization from cyberattacks.
- Detect - your organization is capable of timely detection and analysis of potential threats.
- Respond - react to potential cybersecurity threats using analysis, mitigation, and reporting.
- Recover - restoration of normal operations following a cyberattack in a timely and effective manner.
These different steps can not only help your business create a thorough cybersecurity policy but also assess your organization’s ability to respond and potentially prevent a cyberattack. The Federal Communications Commission also has a free tool for small businesses to create a cyberattack plan.
If A Cyberattack Occurs
If you feel that you have fallen victim to a cyberattack, you should immediately move to secure any sensitive information you feel may be at risk. This should involve changing any and all passwords, resetting your network information, and moving any sensitive information to places inaccessible from the potentially compromised area.
The incident should be logged and reported per the process for reporting and logging any other incident within your organization. You should then perform an analysis on not only what data or information has been compromised, but also on the origins of the attack and what steps could have been taken to prevent it. The focus should be on the recovery of any lost assets and the prevention of a similar attack from occurring.
Help Protect Your Business From Any Digital Threats
Talking about cybersecurity can sometimes feel like those moments in science fiction or actions films where the resident tech nerd is explaining how the villian has bypassed the firewall and hacked into the mainframe—in this instance, we’re all the protagonists asking to hear that explanation one more time, but in a way we can understand. Now, the stakes here may not be as high as something like saving the world, but the risks a potential cyberattack poses are not contained to the realm of fiction. In fact, there is a potentially high cost that can come with a well-coordinated attack—and an unprepared business. Now that you’ve collected the information and resources in this article, though, you’ll be set to get your business started on its cybersecurity journey.
Technology can be very threatening, but cyberattacks aren’t the only way technology can affect your business. Sometimes, you haven’t even gotten that far. A rushed or poorly performed implementation process of a new system can create any number of problems down the road. Check out our article on some common roadblocks you may experience when implementing a new HR information system.
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