Are you a small business owner or a start-up entrepreneur looking to ramp up your cybersecurity infrastructure?
- Do you know what are some strategies that can help you with the least number of investments?
- Have you tried looking at areas like PKI, Digital Certificates, and others to protect against cyberattacks?
Who is this article for? In very simple terms, if you are a business that is using the internet in any form or type, you are a candidate to get hit by a cyberattack. Whether it is your brand website, your Ecommerce platform, your datasheets, or your cloud storage, a cyberattack can take place on any or all of the above-mentioned platforms.
Experts at the FCC suggest that small businesses are 2x times likely to be at the receiving end of cyberattacks compared to their bigger counterparts. In this article, we try to create a guide to help small businesses understand cyberattacks and security in 2021.
Why are Small Businesses more Susceptible to Cyberattacks?
‘Why should someone target my small business when there are other bigger fishes in the sea?’
I am sure that as a start-up entrepreneur or a small business owner, you have asked this question multiple times. The simple answer to the same is because you are far easier to engineer an attack against than a bigger business that already has cybersecurity measures in place.
In other words, while the rewards of attacking you online might be lesser, so too is the effort and time required to engineer the attack! Cybercriminals are on the lookout for businesses that have recently taken their operations online and do not have the necessary security infrastructure in place.
Getting access to their systems is an easier proposition. In some cases, individuals are not even aware that their security has been breached and data records have been tampered with. This is why small businesses are far more vulnerable to being at the receiving end of complicated cyberattacks.
5 Things Small Businesses can do to Prevent Cyberattacks in 2021
- Education of the Employees-
A good preparation against cyberattacks is training and educating the employees for the same. This means that they need to understand what is at stake and exhibit the requisite level of seriousness. You can hold regular training seminars to allow them to understand the processes, software, and errors that can lead to or prevent cyberattacks from taking place.
- Protected Systems, Access Points, and Cloud Solutions-
As an organization, you need to ensure that all the systems of the company are running the best antivirus solutions. You also need to ask your employees to run periodic scans on their systems and keep up with the regular updates that come. Most businesses are moving to cloud storage. Looking at the safety and security of the platform is of utmost importance.
- Working with Managed PKI Solutions-
If you want to full-proof your online security, experts suggest going for managed pki solutions in the market. Contrary to popular belief, this is not at all expensive and guarantees complete cybersecurity on all digital touchpoints. A PKI consists of public and private encryption keys that create secure and identifiable access points for your business.
- Secure Internet and Network Access Points-
Most security experts point out that internet and network connectivity are the top ways, hackers find access to internal processes and systems. Most agree on the fact that using public Wi-Fi should be avoided at all costs by company employees. Putting up firewalls and securing access points can go a long way in preventing cybersecurity attacks in 2021.
- Work with Cybersecurity Experts-
One major challenge for small businesses is coming to terms with all the technicalities of cybersecurity. Being short on resources, they cannot afford to hire resources that would work exclusively on cybersecurity. This is why it is suggested that working with external cybersecurity experts can be beneficial in terms of both securities, as well as affordability.
The Bottom Line
In the past few years, general awareness on issues of cybersecurity has been gaining traction. Unfortunately, this has been primarily because of the recent cyberattacks that have cumulatively cost the world trillions of dollars. By following all the pointers in the article, you can ensure that your small business always stays clear of cyberattacks and other online criminal activity.
