It is a sad reality that the majority of small businesses fail within the first five years. Small and medium-sized businesses might fail for a variety of different reasons.
However, you can be pretty confident that if your small or medium-sized enterprise experiences a successful cyber-attack, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever recover effectively. A successful cyber-attack can cause issues with your finances, productivity, and reputation, which means that avoiding a successful attack is essential for small and medium-sized businesses.
1. Limit Access
When it comes to the future of your business, you don’t want to be taking any risks. This is why educating your employees is not in itself enough to protect yourself fully against an attack as a result of human error. Limiting the number of people who have access to sensitive information is vital for limiting the chances of a successful attack.Using Zero Trust Network Access, or as it is commonly known ZTNA, is the most effective way of limiting your chances of having unauthorized access to sensitive information.
2. Educate Your Employees
Studies have found that over half of successful cyber-attacks are not actually a result of a long and planned campaign, but rather they are due to human error. Not only are breaches as a result of human error all too common, butthey can also have a big impact. In fact, studies have found that data breaches resulting from staff error commonly cost a business 20% of its annual income.
Educating your employees is essential for ensuring you are limiting the chances of a successful cyber-attack. You should teach your employees about the most common forms of cyber-attack and what to watch out for. For example, you should teach your employees about the ways the attackers created phishing emails to elicit a high emotional state in recipients to increase the chances of success.
You should regularly retrain employees to ensure they are benefiting from the most up-to-date knowledge.
3. Manage Passwords
Create a strong set of guidelines for your business to further protect your company. It is vital that you make sure that your clear and comprehensive guidelines are applicable and accessible to all members of staff. One of the most important guidelines that you should specify is password processes.
All passwords used by staff should be strong, meaning that they should be a difficult phrase or word to guess, meaning they should not be an obvious word. A strong password is also classified as containing a mixture of letters and numbers, special characters, punctuation, upper and lower case.
4. Use Comprehensive Cyber-Security
Of course, using comprehensive cyber-security measures is also essential for protecting your small to medium-sized businesses from the consequences of a successful cyber-attack. When you are designing a security suite for your business,you must consider your specific business’s needs. Tailoring your cyber-security measures to your businesses is essential for ensuring you are adequately protected from all potential cyber-attacks.
