Looking for Cyber Security Tips for Small Business? Following are the top 7 security concerns for your office. If you can effectively apply these steps to your business, you will be miles ahead of your competition.
- Employee Training – You could have the most up to date and most secure network for your small business, but having employees that are not trained and educated properly on best
internet security practices is a huge risk to your business. For details we recommend reviewing an outstanding article on Tripwire.com that goes over 8 security practices for use in employee training. - Keep Computers and Networks Protected and Maintained – You should be using a top tier anti-virus product on your office computers with web protection. Your computers should all be on a routine maintenance cycle, meaning they get routinely scanned for malware and viruses; operating system and third party patches and updates routinely installed, including a hard drive health check and clearing of cache files.
- Secure the Office Network with a Firewall – A firewall is a network security component that is installed between your ISP modem and your Office systems. It monitors and controls incoming and outgoing traffic to and from your office network. Just like computers, firewalls require ongoing maintenance and updates. Read More about what a firewall does here.
- Make Sure You are Backing up Your Data – Most small business owners understand the importance of keeping data backed up, but do you really know it is being backed up on a routine basis and that those backups are usable in the event of a catastrophe? This is very critical to know what data is being backed up on which systems in your office. It helps to have documentation on what is being backed up, how it is being backed up and who is responsible for monitoring backups. Unfortunately most businesses find out too late that their backup plan was vulnerable. Get a solid plan together immediately.
- Computer User Accounts – Computers should have a User account created for each user that uses that particular computer. User account passwords should be changed on a regular basis and would be best to contain 8 or more characters, be upper and lower case, with numbers and special characters. Passwords should only be shared with company authorized personnel. Also, User accounts should not have Administrator permissions unless they are IT staff.
- Secure your Wireless Network – For security purposes we recommend having one private wireless network and one public or guest wireless network. Most modern day Firewalls can be setup to broadcast separate private and guest networks. The reason for this is so visitors to your office that use the guest wireless are using a separate wireless network that does not have access to your private wireless where your office computers exist. In fact, employees who bring smartphones and tablets to work should be using this same guest wireless and not the companies private wireless network.
- Get Compliant – If your industry requires you to follow regulatory compliance, it is easier and more cost effective to get your technology compliant now, than wait until you are audited. Check to see what your industry requires and make it a priority to become compliant.
Below are some additional Cyber Security Tips for Small Business resources that you can find further valuable information on how to combat today’s internet threats:
- Toolkit for Small and Midsize Businesses (SMB) Table of Contents
- New NIST Guide Helps Small Businesses Improve Cybersecurity
- What Small Businesses Need to Know
- The importance of Cybersecurity in Your Small Business
- 4 Ways Small Businesses Can Improve Cybersecurity
If you enjoyed reading this article about Cyber Security Tips for Small Business and your small business is overwhelmed with the thought of managing the security of your computers and network, give us a call or send us a note via our contact form. In addition to Cyber Security Tips we offer Small Business Cyber Security Consulting as a service. We look forward to hearing from you!