Cybersecurity is an area of running your business you should not neglect, especially if you have a customer-facing business that collects sensitive information from customers. A cybersecurity breach could erode trust with your customers and cost you significant money as well as have a negative impact on your reputation. Luckily, there are specific things you can do to prevent this. Here are three tips for business owners:
Hire a Cybersecurity Consulting Company
Unless you are already a trained expert in cybersecurity, you need to enlist the help of someone who is. Hiring a cybersecurity consulting company is a great first step, and is much more affordable than hiring a full-time cybersecurity staff member.
A cybersecurity consultant will be assigned to your business. They will perform a thorough audit of your business's current cybersecurity, identifying any weaknesses or potential breaches. They will then put together an organized plan for you to follow in order to shore up your company's cybersecurity.
Improve Your Company Passwords
If your company hasn't had a strict password policy until now, you may discover that employees are using easy-to-guess passwords, and possibly using the same passwords for multiple apps and platforms. It's time to require your employees to use passwords that meet current standards for password security, including being long and using multiple types of characters.
Luckily, these days there are many extensions and apps that securely suggest and store these longer, more complex passwords for you. Your cybersecurity consultant can also set up reminders to automatically prompt your team to change their passwords periodically.
Hold Regular Cybersecurity Training
Once you have resolved any current areas of cybersecurity weakness and improved your password policies, you will want to conduct regular cybersecurity training. All newly hired employees should go through this training as part of their onboarding, and current employees should also go through refresher training once a year or so.
This is especially important because cyber attackers constantly come up with new methods for hacking business computers and stealing sensitive data. It's a good idea to have your cybersecurity consulting company put together the training materials or even come back to the office to periodically conduct in-person training.
Working with a cybersecurity consulting firm and following the tips in this blog post will give you, your employees, and your customers immense peace of mind. You will rest easy knowing that you've done your due diligence in protecting data stored at your business.
For more information about cybersecurity, contact a local professional.