Spring is in the Air and Online Security Should be Top of Mind!

Helpful Tips to Keep Your Small Business Safe from Security Specialists

Well, Spring is finally here and with it a renewed focus on keeping our businesses safe, secure, and operating at peak efficiency though online security best practices. Despite recent headlines of data breaches and compromises such as the SolarWinds attack at some of the world’s largest corporations, almost half (43%) of all cyberattacks target America’s small businesses, according to research from SCORE. 

Additionally, according to statistics from a U.S. National Cyber Security Alliance study, when SMBs suffer a breach, they are far less likely to recover with 60 percent of them shutting their businesses down within six months of a breach.

To protect your small business from attack, even if you have limited personnel or financial resources dedicated to cyber security, here are five immediate online security tips you can implement:

1. Secure Your VPN Access – With the ongoing pandemic, chances are you have remote employees. If you do, it is critical that your organization keep track of who is logging in via a virtual private network (VPN) and only enable the service for those with a legitimate business need. Make sure that as employees are hired or fired that you update their access accordingly.
2. Create a Solid Backup Strategy, Announce It and Test It – An effective backup strategy will provide your business with the ability to get up and running again quickly following an attack. Establish strong rules and permissions for all users and keep them updated. Set up and maintain a schedule to back up servers at set intervals. Run full backups three times a week with incremental backups each hour.
3. Patch Any Existing Vulnerabilities Now and Continue to So on a Regular Basis – Stop ignoring those notifications from Microsoft and other vendors so your systems stay up to date. Create a weekly or monthly “maintenance” checklist and regularly track all applicable patches and update accordingly.
4. Identify and Record Who Has Administrative Privileges – Make it part of your weekly maintenance routine to look at who has administrative privileges to your network infrastructure and shut down access to anyone who should not have full permission.
5. Do not Forget Password Lists – When dealing with a service interruption, the last thing you need to be doing is performing password resets. Establish a central source for creating, distributing, maintaining, and disabling longer, unique passwords for all users during their employment and departure. 

Staying on top of online security requirements to protect your critical business information and intellectual property from data breaches can be daunting; however, if you commit to taking some common-sense approaches to network security at regularly scheduled intervals you will be better guarded against future incidents.