Since the outbreak gripped the global economy and forced most employees to work from home, small businesses have faced a slew of issues. Millions of small businesses throughout the world, who had no prior experience with cybersecurity, were suddenly confronted with a slew of new concerns, ranging from which VPNs to use to how to work safely from a far.
Deborah Golden, Deloitte’s US Cyber Risk Services leader, said that many small businesses are bearing the brunt of the economic impact of government-imposed measures to slow the spread of coronavirus, and that these businesses may find it difficult to adjust to employees working from home and potentially insecure supply chain partners. Small business leaders must be prepared to deal with the onslaught of security risks.
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Data Protection
If your business is predominantly conducted online, You must maintain the maximum security of the data you transmit and receive online to keep your organisation safe.
To do so, you must first assess which data is public (and so does not need to be strictly guarded); which data is of medium importance and would not have a significant impact on your business if discovered; and finally, which data is the most vital and personal to your company.
To avoid compromising your firm, you must create significant procedures to protect this data. Hire Cyber Security Company to safeguard from data leakage. Penetration Testing companies provide sufficient coverage and intrusion detection for protecting sensitive data. The final category of data will have a significant impact on your organisation if it is lost or stolen, so it should be protected with the greatest level of security and given the fewest access permissions to members of your team.
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Teach employees how to spot phishing scams
Phishing attacks are one of the most prevalent ways cyber thieves target businesses these days. It would help to prevent such a damaging harmful attack if you educate your personnel on what phishing is through adequate training.
Cyber fraudsters sometimes use emails that appear to be authentic communications in their phishing attempts. They are frequently disguised as something an employee would expect, such as a password reset email, an HR notification, or a shipping confirmation. Despite the fact that fraudsters go to great lengths to conceal these emails, there are still a few techniques to spot phishing efforts. These are some of the methods:
Check the sender’s name: it goes without saying that clicking on a link in an email from someone you don’t know is always a risky move. Over insecure end-user messaging, no organisation will ever ask for critical information such as usernames or passwords. Cyber fraudsters will go so far as to use an email address that looks suspiciously like a company’s official address, so double-checking who an email is from is essential.
Check the email’s body for strange spelling or characters, as this might be a sign of a phishing attempt, especially if the sender is demanding sensitive information. When it appears to be coming from a reliable source, misspellings and grammar errors should be a red flag.
Intimidation tactics: Avoid messages that begin with “Urgent action necessary” or “Your account has been compromised,” and ask you to click a link and submit personal information. These tactics of intimidation and fear are intended to get you to hand over your credentials.
Links: Never click on a link in an email from someone you do not know. Even if a hyperlink in an email appears to be authentic, hovering over the hyperlink (without clicking) to view the real URL is recommended.
Reporting cyber security incidents: Regardless of a company’s security training, there is still a chance that a security event will occur due to human error. When this occurs, it is critical that employees understand how to report the situation.
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Change Home WIFI Password
Small businesses are being forced to force their employees to adopt some of the security measures seen in most offices or workspaces since the security of an employee’s home wi-fi network is now critical to the security of an entire organisation.
At the very least, all small enterprises must guarantee that all remote workers have changed the default password on their home routers to a strong password.
“Employees should consider utilising ‘pass phrases’ to enhance their passwords because they are more difficult for cyber criminals to guess and are sometimes easier to remember. Allowing children to use your work equipment is not a good idea because most youngsters aren’t aware of the hazards of malware, ransomware, and other cyber threats that can bring down an entire network.”
“It only takes one click on a malicious link or game download to harm the hard drive or, worse, spread to your company’s network,” she noted. “Aside from not providing them access to your work devices, have them check with you before downloading anything to any device.”
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Use VPN
Even if you can persuade your employees to adopt basic security precautions with their home wireless networks, the majority of them will still require VPN services to create secure encrypted tunnels between the home user and a remote server.
This is critical in protecting sensitive company data from wrongdoers who might target a wi-fi hotspot or use intrusive home ISP methods.
“While it may be tempting to use a ‘free’ VPN service, especially at a time when cost is a major driver, you should avoid doing so. Many of these services try to make money by selling your information to third parties. You should also look into the company’s location.” “To prevent your data from being shared, look for a service that is headquartered in a country with strict privacy regulations. If you need your traffic to go via a specific geography, server locations can be something to think about. You’ll also want to make sure the VPN is compatible with your key devices, depending on the diversity of operating systems or devices you’ve deployed.”
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Implement 2FA
Before enabling access to a system or application, authentication confirms an identity (whether a human, machine, or device) by verifying provided credentials against an existing database of permitted identities.
You should consider how to protect both your systems and your customers’ accounts as part of your business plan. One approach to achieve this is to use two-factor authentication (2FA). It means that anyone logging into your system will be required to supply additional information in addition to their username and password in order to verify that they are who they claim to be.
Something you know (e.g. username/password, answer to security question), something you have (e.g. Digital Certificate, smart card), and something you are are all authentication factors (e.g. fingerprint, facial recognition). It can be used on internal systems as well as customer-facing systems.
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Software Update
Keeping all of your systems patched and updated is one of the simplest ways to keep your small business safe.
Cybercriminals have been flocking to hacker forums hunting for weaknesses in all workplace software and video conferencing technologies, according to a recent analysis by IntSights cyber threat analyst Charity Wright and chief security officer Etay Maor. While most of the vulnerabilities discussed have now been patched and fixed by the companies mentioned, those who have not upgraded their systems are still at risk.
Small firms must update their systems and software fixes on a regular basis, according to Carpenter.
“This is one of the strongest online defences against common viruses and malware, especially for Windows machines. Updates are frequently released by software developers to address specific security issues. You can fix the vulnerabilities that virus writers use to attack your computer by downloading and installing the updates.”
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Back up data
Ransomware attacks have become a prevalent problem for organisations of all sizes, but given the hefty ransom costs, small firms should be wary of having their data locked away. While larger companies may be able to pay a ransom or hire security firms to recover their data, many small businesses may not.
All small businesses should perform frequent backups and keep backup data in offsite places to help them recover swiftly from cyber and ransomware assaults.
“Not only is this important protection against ransomware, but it’s also good practise to ensure business continuity during inevitable outages, whether they’re self-inflicted, the result of a malicious attack, or due to a natural disaster.” Given the recent barrage of attacks and intrusions, it’s critical that cybersecurity become a top priority for most remote workers and small businesses. It takes time to implement the correct security best practises, but it is well worth it.