On today’s Business Beat, Jeff reminds small businesses that the threat of cyberattacks is very real.
Tune in to the Business Beat, below, to learn how to protect your business from a cyberattack:
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Good morning, Paul! While most of us are well aware of the fact that there are bad guys out there wanting to hack into our businesses, whether to steal data or information, or even worse to hold our business hostage and require a ransom payment in order to get our assets back. However, what most of us don’t realize is that this doesn’t just happen to big companies. In fact, while you might think as a small business that you’re at a lower risk of cyberattacks like these, just know that the hackers are just as likely to target a small business, especially if their security measures are weaker and easier to hack into. According to research from the 2020 Verizon data breach investigations report, 28% of data breach victims were small businesses. Now after a breach, 37% of businesses say they’ve suffered significant financial loss while 25% have even had to file for bankruptcy and 10% went out of business. So clearly this is a big issue for small business, just as it is for big business. And you need to take this threat seriously. Now the good news, there are things you can do to help protect against an attack and here are some simple ones. First and most importantly, always use and have your staff use strong passwords. Don’t use the same password across all accounts and change those passwords regularly. In fact, there are many good password managers you can use to help you do this effectively. Effective security training. Now your company must establish clear expectations, policies and protocols for your employees to follow and then provide training to them to make sure they’re up to speed on how to execute what is required of them. Third, setting up remote staff to work securely. If you have staff working remotely, make sure they know the protocols clearly on how to work from home or work remotely. Make sure, for example, they’re using their firewall protection or maybe even a VPN and make sure you back up your data and files regularly as a discipline. So the message today on the Business Beat: Cyber threats are real and you need to take protecting your company seriously. I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.
