No matter what industry your business is in, it is currently exposed to numerous risks related to online security. The number of cyber attacks targeting small businesses keeps growing on a daily basis, which proves our point that every single business is facing some sort of a threat. Small businesses are the most common targets of such attacks because of their lack of complex security systems. On top of that, many business owners fail to identify vulnerabilities in their business, which eventually lead to unwanted consequences.
Common data breaches and cybersecurity incidents can cause financial consequences, as well as damage your company’s reputation or leave your clients’ data affected or compromised. Either way, nothing good will ever come out of a weakly secured business structure. Nowadays, businesses are quick to switch cloud storage solutions, use different technologies, and interact via social media without considering the risks that are tied to these platforms. Here is a list of common security risks to help you get a better idea of the security challenges your business might be facing!
Phishing scams can often lead to a larger data breach due to human error. It is natural for people to fall for scammers and their lucrative offers and invitations if they have no experience with such things. Educating your employees on phishing scams and common scam tricks will help prevent incidents of this type.
You’re probably wondering why employees are on a list of risks that a business might be facing but, the truth is, employees are a company’s biggest weakness. Especially the ones who work remotely and connect to public networks to work from different places. If they don’t pay enough attention to security, hackers can easily use them as gateways into your system.
As soon as they find a way to breach your system, hackers will perform some type of a ransomware attack in order to get money from you. They shut down the entire system and ask for money in exchange for access to your data and computers. These attacks are very dangerous and can be extremely costly.
Plain data breaches are the most common type of security attacks where hackers steal people’s personal information such as names, addresses, credit card details, etc. They later use this information for malicious purposes.
By now it should be clearer as to why your small business is at risk, especially if you don’t have a proper security system set in place. We highly recommend taking care of data security by following the NIST security framework and its guidelines for data protection. With the NIST framework you will learn to identify and detect threats, protect your system, respond to incidents, as well as recover from any possible damage. Make sure to start implementing proper safety measures right away, as it is only a matter of time when your small business will become the next target.