Even though small businesses belong to a varied group, most of them have a few things in common. For instance, they all want their businesses to thrive as soon as possible. Secondly, most small-business owners depend on their websites to market their brand and build a reputation for their company in the industry in order to draw more customers.
The problem is that with the developments in technology, cybercriminals are becoming more evolved too and they can easily find new ways to infiltrate into the network of small businesses. This can put the sensitive data of the company at great risk and could lead to many kinds of potential losses.
While many small-business owners try to learn how to stop such threats, most of them get confused with the many myths about cybersecurity and the best practices to be followed. Below are some of those misconceptions which all small businesses should be aware of so that they can protect their company data in the best way possible.
Small Businesses are Not a Target of Cybercriminals
Many budding entrepreneurs presume that their company is too small to be a potential target of cybercriminals. However, being a startup or a small business does not remove their site from the list of appealing ones to hack into. In fact, small businesses can be more attractive targets for some cybercriminals because they will not have in-house security experts or a robust cybersecurity solution installed. A recent report even highlighted that around 43% of cyberattacks happen to small-scale businesses. The results of such attacks can be devastating.
In order to protect your customers and company’s sensitive data, you need to take proactive approaches to cybersecurity. This means that you should invest in a reliable and comprehensive cybersecurity solution for your business, which offers the same level of protection that is provided to large organizations with lots of data. This will help protect your website data efficiently.
Your Data is Not Worth Stealing
Some small businesses believe that because they are not collecting any payment details, they do not have the data that is worth stealing for a cybercriminal. However, payment details are not the only kinds of valuable customer information that cybercriminals target. Online hackers can target even personal identifiable information like the names, email IDs, and user account credentials.
When cybercriminals have the personal identifiable information data, they can use it to inject malware into your customer accounts or emails for further gains. They can even sell the personal identifiable information on the dark web for creating phishing schemes or tricking people to provide their banking details and credit card information. Cybercriminals can also use the data for ransomware attacks and withhold stolen details unless the user pays the specified amount.
Antivirus Software is Enough to Keep you Safe
A few small-business owners think that having a traditional endpoint security solution will be enough to protect their websites from cyberattacks. However, consumer-level antivirus software or firewalls are not enough to secure your business website. Cybercriminals can easily break into the system and steal the data even if you have such solutions in place. Therefore, you should adopt a more holistic strategy to boost cybersecurity. This means incorporating multiple layers of security for your business data and securing all points of entry.
Antivirus software applications usually detect threats that are in the form of executable programs or macros that run within other programs. However, cybercriminals these days can break into web applications too and install malware to compromise the security of the system. This can cause significant data loss, which sometimes happens even without the user recognizing it. Traditional antivirus programs cannot detect such threats either, which puts your websites exposed to cyberattacks.
You can install automated website scanning solutions to counter such threats. This will go a step further than your traditional endpoint security system and scan the data files and website database for malware. You can even choose a security solution that automatically fixes the vulnerabilities found in the web application.
External Attacks are the Only Cybersecurity Threat
There is no arguing the fact that external attackers are a grave threat for businesses. However, there can be some internal risks too. For instance, the team members of your company can pose significant security risks via many types of ignorant errors. In fact, reports say that around 60% of data breaches happen due to employee errors. This means that you should educate your staff about the cybersecurity measures that you have taken.
Employee training on cybersecurity should be done at least once a year. These annual sessions can include how to identify a phishing scam, how to use a password manager to generate unique and more secure passwords, and how to use a VPN when connecting to a public Wi-Fi network. That will ensure that you stay safe from the internal risks of data loss.
