Humans are good at spending time and money protecting against likely problems. But we are naturally poor at defending ourselves against rare events that could have a catastrophic impact on us.
For proof, you only have to see the vast impact a worldwide pandemic has had on the world in the last two years.
Catastrophic, rare events might not be on your radar as a business owner, but they should be.
Take cybersecurity, for example. To help you plan for the worst, here are five essential cybersecurity tips to protect your business assets and your data.
1. Update Your Software
You must have a system in place to roll out updates and security patches to keep your business-critical applications safe. In practice, that’s a challenge, as it will often require downtime and testing.
However, it’s a vital part of cybersecurity. We recommend assigning an employee to act as your security administrator. Give them responsibility for planning and updating these systems.
Make sure you give your security manager full authority to add the updates when they need to, even if some departments experience short-term disruption.
2. Run Cybersecurity Training
Cybersecurity might be the responsibility of one person in your organization, but everyone must play their part. Hackers can exploit one weak link in any organization, and that weakness might be an employee.
To counter this, consider incorporating cyber security certifications into your regular cybersecurity training programs with everyone in your organization. In addition, make cybersecurity part of your onboarding process for new employees.
If you don’t have anyone in-house who can provide training, pay for online training programs that your staff can complete via their computer. Alternatively, invest some resources in creating a tool that will use your training data as input for generative AI to regularly train your employees for you.
3. Update Your Policies
Security policies shouldn’t be a tick in the box; ones to write and file away permanently.
Security policies must be live documents, regularly reviewed, and regularly updated. They are your initial line of defense to know whether your security is following best practices.
It might be worth hiring an external security consultant to review these policies for you. They’ll be able to provide an outsider’s view on whether you are following the latest security protocols in your business.
4. Pay for Secure Data Storage
You don’t want your customer or commercial data getting into the wrong hands. That is the sort of scenario that can lead to permanent damage to your business name and even government fines for data breaches.
Secure storage is one of the best cybersecurity tips to protect business data from hackers.
Invest in the most secure and advanced platforms for your data, ideally secured in the cloud. You might consider using a SaaS (software as a Service) option or even utilize a cloud VPN for enhanced security measures.
5. Have an Action Plan for Security Breaches
If the worse happens, you don’t want to find yourself caught in a panic. Have an action plan in place for dealing with your worst-case scenarios, such as a ransomware attack.
That means putting emergency plans in place for countering a live security breach.
It also means planning downtime, data recovery, and management escalation routes. You’ll also want to think about preparing PR statements to minimize the reputational damage to your company.
Cybersecurity Tips To Implement Today
Don’t hope for the best with your business security. Implement these five cybersecurity tips in your organization today to help protect your business against a critical data breach.
For more security tips, head to our news section for our latest articles.
