5 Reasons Why Your Business Needs a Security Solution

Every modern business needs a security solution. Cybercrime costs $400bn worldwide. In the wake of cyberattacks against the New York Times, Chase Manhattan, Target and healthcare.gov, we’re all more aware of the threat. And when Sony gets hacked, we have to sit up and take notice. However, these news headlines can give the impression that it’s large businesses that are the main targets. In fact, smaller enterprises face persistent electronic security threats. Small businesses make promising targets partly because they tend to be underprepared. So here are 5 reasons why you should implement a security solution for your business, and what to do about each one.

1: Your Passwords Are Awful

Don’t believe me?

These are the 5 most common leaked passwords of 2014:

1: 123456

2: password

3: 12345

4: 12345678

5: qwerty

Yes, seriously.

Maybe your business is ahead of the curve, but maybe not. In any case, weak password protection is one of the most common ways to get hacked. If people with access to your company’s sensitive data have passwords like MetsFan1975 then you have a problem – it’s easy to guess from information that’s available on Facebook and elsewhere, and the data haul is worth the effort. Teach your staff how to create and remember soldi passwords, using a mixture of letters,numbers and non alphanumeric symbols.

2: You’re Under Attack

Again, it seems pretty unlikely – but that’s because you’re not a cybercriminal. If you were, you’d know how many hacks, scams and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are launched every day against small and medium businesses. According to CSOonline, an array of software tools allow criminals to easily and cheaply ‘shoot in the dark,’ like automatically dialling random numbers ‘til someone picks up. And the Verizon 2013 Cybercrime Report says SMBs are actually more likely to be attacked by cybercriminals than their larger counterparts.

3: Your Data Isn’t Secure 

Looking at that remark from Verizon, it’s tempting to ask, ‘why?’

Why would cybercriminals prefer smaller businesses as targets?

Well, in part it’s because larger companies typically keep their data encrypted, behind multiply redundant firewalls, and they have an IT staff watching what’s going through the system. That makes attacking them a lot harder. Smaller concerns with no dedicated IT staff, weak consumer-grade firewall protection and antivirus and no encryption simply make easier marks.

4: Your Data Isn’t Compartmentalized

The data your business handles can be broken down into two types, depending on what’s most important to have: access or security. For instance, most of your company data is priority-access. It needs to be easy to get to for employees and easy to transfer. If it leaks, it doesn’t really matter, but if no-one can reach it, [productivity is held up. Some data – customers’ personal information, for instance – is priority-security. If someone has to wait a while to access it, that’s better than having it all over the internet. So when you’re looking at how to store and transmit data this is a crucial distinction and you need to figure out what kind of data it is.

5: You’re Not Up to Speed With BYOD

BYOD – for Bring Your Own Device – describes the way that an increasing number of people are using their own devices to do work on. They’re bringing smartphones to the office, using their own laptop at home, working on presentations on the train on a tablet. But according to a NetDiligence survey, the biggest cause of security breaches isn’t hacking, or phishing, or even those weak passwords. It’s lost or stolen devices.

BYOD is happening. It doesn’t look like it’s stoppable. But there are things you can do to minimise the damage you can cause, like running an integrated, secure network at work and getting employees’ OK to install security software on their devices as a condition of bringing them to work. Many of these security tools will allow you to remotely wipe a lost or stolen device, plugging your biggest leak.

Share