Running a business these days is far more complicated than in the past. Today, you have a lot more to worry about in addition to things like stiff competition and turbulent economic forces. High-tech digital threats can also ravage a company’s finances. According to a report by Brink News, 90 percent of companies have at some time been hacked.
If you want to avoid such threats, your company needs to make a significant investment into technology that has the ability to protect your company and its money. Not doing so would be extremely foolhardy. Below are four steps you should consider.
Implement Encryption
Whether you like it or not, at some point your company will likely face a network breach in which outsiders gain access to your company’s data. When this data is sensitive, it can cause absolute turmoil for your business. Your customers could have their identities stolen, and that could result in them being scammed by cybercriminals. It could lead to expensive class action lawsuits. The criminals may even hold the information for ransom and still abuse it even after the ransom has been paid.
Thankfully, data can be protected in a way that will stop criminals from being able to use it entirely. This can be done through the process of encryption. Encryption transforms data into a form that is indecipherable unless it is decrypted by certain authorized parties. Make sure all of your most sensitive data remains encrypted while in storage or transit in and out of your network.
Secure Backend Services
Something you must take steps to protect is your backend services. Backend services can be thought of as digital services you may not consider often in the context of your company’s long-term planning but are extremely important to your business’s daily operations. This includes things such as your point of sales, or POS, system that is used to check out customers at your stores. It also includes things like a payment gateway for merchant acquirers that allows your company to make sales via credit and debit card.
If you don’t make the effort to ensure that these backend services are secure, your company, as well as your employees, will likely be targeted by criminals. While you may not be an expert at securing your backend services, you must be sure to deal with professionals and third party suppliers who are.
Backup Your Data to Protect it from Ransomware
As previously eluded to, one of the most common forms of cybercrime today involves criminals gaining access to a company’s data and holding it hostage. Often, this is done through the use of something now known as ransomware. This is a form of malware that is often unintentionally downloaded by companies and then encrypts the business’s sensitive data. The data will only be decrypted if a ransom is paid by the company.
However, if a company has real-time backup services that ensure that each piece of data can be quickly recovered after a ransomware attack, much of this threat will be averted. Doing so also protects you against other causes of data loss such as power outages and extreme weather. Dell estimates that data loss and downtime costs companies $1.7 trillion a year.
Train Your Employees on How to Use Technology Securely
Lastly, if you want to protect your company’s money, it’s not enough to simply invest in the technology required to make that possible. You must also make an investment in training your employees on how to use that technology in a secure way that will protect your company, its employees, and its data. According to technology professionals, employee negligence is the leading cause of data breaches that lead to cyber-attacks.
Protecting your company and its money is far more complicated in today’s extremely digital and interconnected age. Avoiding many serious hazards requires investing in technology and technology-based strategies. If you don’t, your company will surely pay the price.
