GlobalBX

No matter what you do and no matter how large or small your business is, technology is going to play a large part in your daily operations and probably your revenue too. Despite this dependency on so much technology the majority of businesses don’t take the threat to their IT seriously enough despite the fact that a major security breach could be enough to send most businesses under.

Take a good hard look at the IT that’s used on a regular basis within your business, customer lists, sensitive client information, access to funds – losing any of this data could have a detrimental impact on your business, it could result in the loss of one or more clients which will directly affect your revenue, it’s also going to damage your reputation which will make it harder to win future business and if you have to store your data in a certain way to ensure you’re industry compliant you could even find you’re facing legal action. These are all reasons why you should be taking your IT security more seriously.

You’ll already have a firewall and some antivirus software in place but this doesn’t mean you can put your feet up. If something is about to attack your IT systems a Firewall is not necessarily going to stop it. A firewall will simply asses the surface value of a piece of data before deciding if it should deliver it, if the data looks safe the firewall will still let it though. Antivirus software is designed to pick up on things like viruses, Trojans and worms trying to get through to the servers or desktops but is more of a cure than prevention. It’ll help spot something after it’s already got through and shouldn’t be relied on as a sole source of IT security.

The best way to combat any IT security threat is to start by assessing what risk you have. Are your staff you’re biggest threat? Do you have outdated basic IT security in place? Do you competitors pose as your biggest risk? Do you have industry regulations that could cripple your business if you don’t comply? Decide what has the potential to do the most amount of damage and start there.

For most businesses it’s actually their staff who pose the biggest threat whether intentional or not. If you have to let a member of staff go are they going to take valuable data with them? If they get poached by a competitor how much of your clients data are they taking with them? Do all your staff have the same basic administrator level access to everything? Can you trust Bob not to drink too much on a Friday night and tell all his friends sensitive data?

Your staff may be the biggest threat but this threat is also the easiest to rectify. Set up different levels of access, the work experience kid doesn’t need to same level of access as the finance director. When someone leaves make sure their access is terminated immediately and change any generic passwords. Make sure their employment contract prohibits the removal of sensitive data and make sure they’ve signed a non disclosure agreement (NDA). Give your staff some basic security training, passwords like 123456, password and iloveyou are the most common passwords in use and close family names can also be easily guessed by anyone who knows that person. Try to assign passwords to everyone that are random combinations of numbers and upper and lower case letters. Make sure they’re not opening emails or attachments from people they don’t know or anything that looks suspicious. A little knowledge can go a long way in keeping your IT security and your business as safe as houses.