Businesses large and small must take precautions against security threats. In the past two years there have been some high-profile attacks on major companies. Apple, Google, Amazon, PayPal, Visa, and many more have all been hacked. Hackers are also targeting small businesses because there is a perceived lack of security. Protecting your business, intellectual property, or customer’s privacy is very important. It can save you lots of money and heartache. Here are a few tools any business can use to secure themselves against malicious attacks.

Employee Training

All employees of the company should be well versed and how to protect sensitive information. There should be a clear and concise protocol for handling customer information, company data, and password protection. No matter how many times people are reminded they still seem to use the same password over and over. This is not good. Passwords should be at least 10 Alpha numeric digits to make access very challenging for a hacker.

??Protect Mobile Devices

Business is not only going into the cloud it’s also going mobile. It has been shown that a mobile device can easily be broken into by a sophisticated attacker. The four digit key code for a device can be broken in about 10 minutes. Android devices with SD cards are very vulnerable. The SD card is not encrypted and can easily be a way into the device. There should be multi layers of security. That may entail adding a security pin for every text or e-mail access. Because multiple accounts are linked, once hacker breaks into one account the rest are very vulnerable.

Antivirus

Every device should have antivirus and anti-spyware on them. It’s readily available and reasonably inexpensive for small businesses to use. There must be a daily scan the of every to stay, virus, malware, and spyware free

Electronic Signatures

Electronic signatures are a very handy way to ensure safety and security for correspondence sent in or out of the company. An electronic signature is an electronic stamp placed on every e-mail which verifies the senders name and time. The person receiving the message can check the electronic signature and be confident of the original sender. Digital signatures don’t require a major overhaul of your e-mail system to implement.

Growth

As a small business grows the solutions to deal with computer and IT problems become more difficult. In addition to the logistical IT issues, protecting the servers and computers against attacks becomes an even bigger issue. Do not wait on the implementation of a comprehensive security strategy until growth happens. Installing security measures now can save you later.

Cyber security matters! The average cost of a successful attack on a small business is about $200,000. In this economy I don’t think many businesses have that kind of money to loose.

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Jared Jaureguy is a Technology Consultant who has helped many businesses implement the best use of technology to help grow their business. You can follow Jared on Twitter @JaredJaureguy.