Posted on August 16, 2019 at 11:30 AM

Top 9 Cybersecurity Tips That Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know

In this digital era, companies need to have their online presence to promote their products and services to their customers. This puts additional responsibility on business owners to ensure greater security for their online systems. Cybersecurity attacks have become a greater threat to companies and it’s essential for entrepreneurs to take the right steps to make their system foolproof and safe from hackers.

Most of the private information, sensitive data including emails related to the company are at huge risk of cyber security threats. Thus, it’s important for business owners to employ the best cyber security practices in their company to protect their valuable data against theft.

With the rise in cybercrime activities, it’s even more important for entrepreneurs to identify the future risks posed to their systems and rely on professionals to assist them in providing with the best security solutions.

Let’s look at how you can boost the security of your websites using some of the tips that we’ve shared below:

–Restrict physical access to your systems

Most business owners are so focused on protecting their systems that they forget to use protection mechanisms to safeguard their physical machines. It’s essential to train your employees to use the right security measures while using computers and laptops outside the office.

Make sure to have external computers on a separate network than the internal computers. The routers, switches, and other connected devices must be locked and have restricted access available to only core employees. Wherever possible, it’s necessary to use strong passwords for your accounts and ensure to log out if the system is left unattended.

–Boost email security for your accounts

Email is one of the most important things that requires protection as it is most vulnerable to cyber attacks. It’s possible for hackers to hack your email account and have access to all the confidential information. Thus, employees need to be made aware to recognize suspicious emails to prevent them from clicking on unknown links which might lead them to phishing sites that may contain harmful viruses.

This can cause potential harm to the sensitive information and can even lead to loss of valuable customers for your business.

-Encrypt important information

Companies such as Google are making best efforts towards making web a much safer place by constantly encouraging website owners to switch over to HTTPS protocol. By doing this, you can be rest assured that the data transmitted from your browser to server is encrypted and securely transmitted.

Websites that are secured using SSL certificates can help on protecting your sensitive business information more secure and help your visitors’ data from being misused by hackers.

If in case of subdomains’ security, a specific type of SSL certificate known as the Wildcard SSL certificate allows you to secure your main site as well as the subdomains. This is quite useful for large enterprises who need to maintain large websites with multiple subdomains.

-Ensure proper backup to protect your data

Despite taking all the necessary security measures, sometimes your website may be still prone to cyber attacks from hackers. Thus, it’s imperative to take regular backups to protect all the sensitive information. You need to password protect all your backup files or they must be encrypted.

–Use latest and updated software

Most software components used in the development of products are vulnerable to attacks from hackers. By using obsolete version. your company might be faced with security issues which can cost both time and money. Instead, it’s better to update your software on a regular basis as most of them are free and easy to install.

–Have regular security audits

Security audits can help in identifying the weakness and expose the threats faced by your system. Usually, these need to be done by professionals who are experts on this field. These experts may be classified into red team and blue team where the blue team can take over product development and maintenance. On the other hand, the red team performs a penetration test where they try to hack the product similar to hackers. This can be used to test vulnerabilities in the system and detect them in early stages.

-Improve wireless network security

Wi-fi can pose to be a potential threat to your network security as they are highly prone to attacks from hackers. As it extends past your office walls, there is a possibility of anyone connecting to them using your network. It’s important to secure your network using right measures by using network intrusion software. Such kind of protection can ensure protection for your system and monitor it even after hours.

–Use anti-virus software on your network

It’s necessary to install an anti-virus software for your computer and update it regularly which contains the latest virus protection. Otherwise, this can cause malicious programs and new viruses to enter your network. In addition, its better to have anti-malware and anti-spyware programs installed to ensure safety of your networking systems.

-Protect your social media accounts

There are enormous amounts of information being shared today across social networks. This poses additional threat of attack from hackers who can pick up information from social media profiles and compromise on the privacy of information. This means employees need to be made aware about not sharing sensitive company information with others or refrain from passing personal information.

Conclusion

In addition to the above measures that we’ve discussed above, having a multiple layer of security for your systems can make your systems less vulnerable from cyber-attacks. In such cases, two factor authentication might prove to be an effective way to provide solid protection to your systems.

Build a cybersecurity community in your organization to address some of the core security issues. Use the intranet to keep the employees posted about the latest developments and trends in cybersecurity so that they are aware about these threats. The key to ensuring security and reducing cyberattacks is to be prepared by using the right measures at the right time.