How Small Businesses Can Protect Their Systems from Hackers

There is no doubt that technology has been improving our lives with each innovation that comes out of it every day. Not only is it making it easy for us to manage our business, but it is also presenting us with a lot of ways to expand our opportunities by keeping us effective and motivate.

Take, for instance, Konica Minolta in Australia. It is a company that helps other businesses transform their environment through innovative hardware and software solutions. That is only possible because of the technological advancements we have seen today. There would have been a time when opening a business means keeping effective techniques to yourself, now there are companies whose sole purpose is to teach others those trade secrets and how to execute them.

But with positive outcomes such as those above, there are also negative ones that can threaten the progress of our business. Hacking is the act of breaking into other people’s computers to exploit its weaknesses or to steal digitised assets. You would think that hackers would rather target bigger corporations; however, because big companies invest so much in their cybersecurity, hackers turn to small and midsize companies.

Getting in the hackers head

An article from Future of Business and Tech showed an interview with Michael Kaiser, he has been the executive director of the National Cybersecurity. He says that 71% of breaches have targeted small business. Kaiser explains that larger companies take multiple precautions when it comes to protecting their systems, so it is the smaller companies who become prey to hackers. Ultimately, the reason why small businesses are being hacked is because of the lack of knowledge and resources to secure their systems.

But what is bothering about this information is the fact that hackers, it would seem, are only doing this just to play with sensitive information. It does not matter to them if you are a big or small corporation, as long as there is a weakness to exploit, then you will be hacked.

Follow these tips to protect your business

With the help of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a checklist has been created to guide companies on how to make sure their digital assets are safe:

• Look through all of your digitised information you have on your computer or on a cloud. If these are the most important to you, it is likely that these will be the first things hackers will target. Of course, everything should be secured, but prioritise sensitive information first. Anticipate what hackers might be interested in by checking out other things like addresses and account numbers of employees.
• Hire an expert if you have to and learn as much as you can about how you can protect your assets.
• Have an alert system set up so that you will be notified immediately if there has been a breach. Make sure you have countermeasures laid out in the event of a cyber-attack so you can respond without slowing down business operations.
• Talk to an expert about how your business can recover from a security breach.

It would be very wise to invest in cybersecurity and make it one of your priorities. But do not go in blind, talk to specialists who can help you figure out what type of protection you will need as a small start-up and how you can improve your system as your business is growing.