If you are a new or small business, you’re more likely than anyone else to be hacked. Data breaches due to scams are especially concerning. Maybe it’s the fact that small businesses have less cyber security, have untrained staff in cybersecurity, or are more likely to pay out for ransomware than go to the trouble of finding out the hacker. If you want to make sure your business and customers are safe from hackers, take a look at our guide to cybersecurity and avoiding scams.
Upgrade your compliance team
Depending on what stage you are at with your business, it’s likely that you’ll need a compliance team at some point. You might be simply using your own know-how to try and keep everything in check, but as the business expands, especially as you start to hire staff, you’ll need more help keeping on top of what you can and cannot do.
A compliance consultant can be very useful the more time goes on. Not only do they make sure you don’t do anything you aren’t supposed to for the sake of others, but also for the sake of your own business. They’re really considered one of the highest advisers, making sure you know what you’re doing and will probably convince you that you should…
Upgrade your cybersecurity
The COVID 19 lockdowns proved a lot of things about our society, but an underrated lesson was that cybersecurity is very much a problem that needs tackling. One of the side effects of people working from home, business security was given a knock. People taking their laptops home on different networks, with lacking password security, leaving access to business and customer data out in the open.
However, even if your entire workforce never takes their laptop home, don’t think you’re safe. Just as easily, hackers are getting into data storage with phishing scams and ransomware.
The first thing a compliance officer is going to tell you is that you need to protect your customer’s data, and that will require upgrades of security and even retraining of your employees to ensure that they don’t unwittingly fall for a scam email.
Upgrade your payment methods
And then there is protecting the money coming from your customers. Online shopping offers a lot of ways for payments to go through, but muggers have simply got smarter, not thwarted entirely. Now they access users through a public Wi-Fi and intercept a payment on the way to you, allowing them access to either the customer or your business. You have to use online methods, because no one is going to send you cash in the mail but be sure that the methods you offer are encrypted.
Upgrade your data storage
The best way to keep hacker fingers off of your business or customer data is to store it in a Cloud. The Cloud is backed up into multiple servers so there’s no chance of entirely losing or deleting them, but its nature of allowing users access to their own data means that a hack to the company won’t allow the hacker access to everything. There is also the added benefit in that there is nothing physical to take or access.
Update your cybersecurity
If you’re going to ensure that you avoid cyber scams in your business, your compliance consultant should have a checklist of tasks for you that need to be carried out for a secure business. This will include malware protection, strong password policies, installing firewalls, instructing end users to report suspicious activity, regular reviews of network alerts and error reports, regular risk assessment, and incident response strategies.