Five Cybersecurity Best Practices to Secure Your Small- to Medium-Sized Business
Improve cybersecurity in your organization by adopting these five simple best practices.
1. Regularly back up data off-site. Businesses hold valuable information that cyber criminals are looking for, like employee and customer records or financial information. Consistently back up your data so that if your company is ever attacked by ransomware, you can minimize the impact.
2. Implement formal security policies. Establishing security practices and policies and enforcing them is essential to protecting your systems. Protecting the office network should be on everyone’s mind since those who use it can be potential targets for attackers. Explain security practices and policies to employees to help them understand why they’re in place, how they apply to them, and the potential risks to the business if they’re not followed.
3. Keep your software up to date. Software and hardware manufacturers routinely issue updates and patches to improve security. Hackers, along with malicious programs and viruses, find weaknesses in software (called vulnerabilities) that they exploit to access computers, smartphones, or tablets. Installing updates fixes these vulnerabilities and helps keep these devices secure.
4. Develop an incident response plan. An incident response plan contains the instructions and procedures your business can use to identify, respond to, and mitigate the effects of a cyber incident. The plan should indicate who is responsible for handling incidents, as well as relevant contact information for communicating with external parties, stakeholders, and regulators.
5. Educate your employees. Teach your employees about cyber threats and the different ways cyber criminals can infiltrate your systems. Show them how to protect the business’ data by training them on how to recognize the signs of a breach and how to stay safe while using the company’s network.
Cybercrime and Your Business: Criminal Threats and What to Do About Them
Source:
Statistics Canada, Impact of Cybercrime on Canadian Businesses, 2017
