Online crime will only become worse with time.
Over the last 2 years, the number of new viruses which are were exclusively designed to target mobile devices increased by over 54% and according to recent research, by the end of 2019, cybercrime will have costed businesses from around the world over 2 trillion dollars. These worrying statistics about cybercrime are only two out of the hundreds that you can freely explore and learn about on the internet.
Cybercrime is a problem for all of us
According to statistics, if your business is in the UK, it is highly likely that it will eventually become a victim to a cyber-attack or a security breach, if it hasn’t already. If this hasn’t yet happened, and you have not taken any measures to protect your business, it is time that you do that before the damage is done.According to a 2018 Cyber Security Breaches Survey, 7/10 businesses and 6/10 charities have experienced some sort of a security breach or cyber-attack.
It’s time to defend ourselves and protect our online property.
Below, you will find a list of THREE of the most essential Cyber Security measures provided by Totality Services, which your business can take in order to prevent future breaches.
1. Train your staff.
A lot of the cyber-attacks across businesses in the UK are successful not because the security of the business is bad but because the staff within the corporation is not trained properly, meaning that most breaches happen because of an internal human error.
It can only take an employee one click on a bad e-mail link to cause the entire company to crumble and become a victim of a hacker that could at worse, have complete control of the entire network with the freedom to do what they desire.
Advice:
You don’t need to make every staff member an IT security specialist, but training them and showing them how they can spot threats is important. If you don’t have the skillset in-house, there are plenty of great local cyber-security consultants out there that can provide you with a service of great value. Don’t hesitate to contact our fully managed IT Support London team for more
2. Apply Two-factor Authentication (2FA).
If you have really important intellectual property that must be protected at all costs, you MUST have enabled Two-factor Authentication (2FA) on all user accounts, applications and devices that you access regularly.
So, what is 2FA?
2FA provides a secondary layer of protection which requires two separate authentications before your identity is confirmed and you are granted access into whatever it is that you are protecting, whether it is a device, a folder or an account, it doesn’t matter.
One of the best examples is when you are doing online banking and pay for an expensive trip, your bank is likely to send you a message to confirm the payment before they process it so that they know it is you who is making the booking and not someone that may have somehow ended up having access to your account.
Other examples include companies that provide you with one-time only code or biometric fingerprint scans.
A lot of business apps now require 2FA.
Specialists fromUK’s best IT Support London say that accounting software’s like Xero or Google’s G-Suite provide 2FA as an option as very important information is usually stored on those types of platforms. We strongly urge that you have 2FA enabled to ensure complete protection of your business and client information.
3. Backup your data regularly!
As we mentioned at the start of this article, it is very likely that your business will eventually become a victim of a cyber-attack. In some occasions the damage can be so bad that your business can not only lose its important information but lose resources in trying to repair everything and bring it back to life but sometimes, if customer information is leaked, you may get fined or even sued by your clients.
Therefore, we recommend that you ALWAYS and regularly backup all your data.
The best way to back up your data is in the cloud.
A lot of small businesses that believe that they are under no danger of a cyber-attack often store their business-critical data on a physical device like a hard drive. Although secure to an extent, it is still very vulnerable and brings an element of risk. We won’t even get into the fact that sometimes hard-drives can fail and all the data can be wiped in an instant without a possibility of reversing.
The best way to protect your data is through a cloud-based backup service. It is not only cost-effective but extremely reliable and secure for start-ups and small businesses. Cloud solutions use data encryption to protect your data from any unauthorised access or natural disasters.
As a whole, if you want your business to be secured against the biggest threats online, you will perhaps need millions of pounds in security budget, however, that are not necessary. With the simple tips given above, you can go a long way in ensuring that your business is protected.
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