Running a business isn’t just about coming up with a unique idea for a product or service and selling through an online store or a brick-and-mortar establishment. It goes beyond selling and touches on the need to prepare for cyber threats. As more people now rely on payment gateways and digital banks for handling all kinds of financial transactions, it helps to assume that your business is a prime target for hackers and fraudsters.
Cybercrime costs Canadian businesses, not just billions of dollars in losses, but also inflicts a fatal blow to brand reputations. When your establishment lacks the means to defend against brute-force attacks and other sophisticated forms of hacking, the fallout from a breach will make it difficult if not impossible for you to recover. Iit pays to look for ways to enhance your business’s resilience to cyberattacks. Here’s what you can do:
Education goes a long way as you strive to make your business respond well to the latest threats. Identifying them helps you focus on the tools and approaches that best defend against them. Most cyberattacks rely on malware injections and phishing to compromise internal networks.
More recent forms of hacking include drive-by downloads and social engineering, both of which prove to be effective, at least in compromising outdated networks. In any case, learning as much as you can about these types of threats will allow you to properly allocate resources for the right activities.
After you have identified the threats you should prepare for, you need to know if your enterprise has all the right protections in place. When done right, a security audit will uncover what your business lacks and what gaps could potentially lead to a damaging data breach.
You won’t be able to do this by yourself, so consider building an IT team that consists of people specializing in cybersecurity. It’s also a good idea to reach out to a third-party service provider that can conduct a security analysis and set you up to keep your network up-to-date in preparation for more sophisticated threats.
The types of cybersecurity tools and strategies you can employ will largely depend on your business needs, especially its size, the type of clients it’s serving, and the volume of sensitive data you’re handling. Start by implementing strict access controls that monitor who’s using your internal network and identify suspicious activity within.
It’s also important to implement data encryption which is essential if your business has employees working remotely. In terms of protecting customer data from being stolen online, consider getting a secure and trusted payment gateway and using an MRZ code reader API to verify customers before they sign up for your service or finalize a purchase.
The right tools and strategies can only do so much in protecting your business from entities that try to compromise it from the outside. A data breach can still be possible despite advanced defenses due to the possibility of human error.
Employees who fall for social engineering and phishing tactics will indirectly open your network up to attacks, so it’s important to set strict access protocols and train your employees on how to properly secure their accounts. Require them to change passwords every month and prohibit access to suspicious websites as well as their social media accounts. It also helps if you can encourage them to take a more active role in reporting possible cyberattacks and join workshops on enterprise security.
Your business’s survival hinges on its ability to address the latest strategies used by hackers and data thieves. Shore up your defenses by keeping these essential tips in mind.
Photo by Fernando Arcos from Pexels
