Does your business have a cybersecurity plan?
Business Technology | June 4, 2013
Here’s an interesting fact: In 2012, companies with just one to 250 employees — what most people typically think of as small businesses — ended up being the victims in more than 30 percent of all cyber attacks. Entrepreneur Magazine cites this statistic, taken from the 2013 Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec, to demonstrate a point: Even small businesses require a cybersecurity plan.
Anti-Virus
The Entrepreneur story states that the first thing in any cybersecurity plan is anti-virus software. This software is a must for small business owners. Anti-virus software isn’t perfect, and especially clever viruses can slip past it, but businesses that don’t have any anti-virus protection are setting themselves up for a extensive hack.
E-mail Skills
You should also teach your employees e-mail skills. Specifically, you should teach them which e-mail messages that they ought to delete. We all receive a great deal of suspicious e-mail messages, and many of them now originate from senders whom we actually recognize. The trick is to avoid the ones that somehow don’t look right. Employees also need to understand that should they open an e-mail that turns out to be suspicious they need to immediately delete it, and they mustn’t click on any of its links.
You Need Firewalls
Entrepreneur recommends, too, that you employ firewalls in your small business. These can prevent hackers from being able to access your inbound and outbound traffic. Just as important, firewalls can safeguard your company from your employees, walling off their access to potentially dangerous Web sites.
Here’s an interesting fact: In 2012, companies with just one to 250 employees — what most people typically think of as small businesses — ended up being the victims in more than 30 percent of all cyber attacks. Entrepreneur Magazine cites this statistic, taken from the 2013 Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec, to demonstrate a point: Even small businesses require a cybersecurity plan.
Anti-Virus
The Entrepreneur story states that the first thing in any cybersecurity plan is anti-virus software. This software is a must for small business owners. Anti-virus software isn’t perfect, and especially clever viruses can slip past it, but businesses that don’t have any anti-virus protection are setting themselves up for a extensive hack.
E-mail Skills
You should also teach your employees e-mail skills. Specifically, you should teach them which e-mail messages that they ought to delete. We all receive a great deal of suspicious e-mail messages, and many of them now originate from senders whom we actually recognize. The trick is to avoid the ones that somehow don’t look right. Employees also need to understand that should they open an e-mail that turns out to be suspicious they need to immediately delete it, and they mustn’t click on any of its links.
You Need Firewalls
Entrepreneur recommends, too, that you employ firewalls in your small business. These can prevent hackers from being able to access your inbound and outbound traffic. Just as important, firewalls can safeguard your company from your employees, walling off their access to potentially dangerous Web sites.