By Kathy Washenberger, Director Information Security/GRC
April 15, 2020
This current environment has many attackers targeting small businesses. Attackers want to exploit areas they perceive to be the weakest. As a way to combat these attackers and provide you with some practical ways to recognize issues early, here are some things you can be thinking about as you continue to run your small business as best as you can with limited resources.
- Know Your Risk
One of the biggest issues is simply understanding what potential attackers may want to gain from your business. Attackers are looking for financial gain, so any way that they can get data they are able to sell (such as personal information, credit card data, bank account information, etc.) or even exploit your business to allow them to profit are key areas to consider.
- Control What you Can
Although you don’t have teams of resources to provide cyber controls, what you do have is common sense and the ability to spot attackers before they can do damage. Be watchful for scams in the form of email, phone, text, or other ways to get you to provide sensitive information. It’s amazing what avenues attackers will take to trick you or your customers into giving out user IDs, passwords, personal or company-related information. If it doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.
- Learn from Others
You don’t have to do this alone, there are many resources available to you. Here is one online checklist that can be helpful for you to ask yourself or the companies that provide your technology (websites, email, finance, payroll, any type of software to run your business). Use this as a guide to ask the important questions to make sure your technology is secure.
While many businesses are trying to simply stay afloat, it is easy to become distracted. Remain vigilant in what is most important to your company! Following these steps can help!
– Kathy
Kathy Washenberger is an IT and Cybersecurity expert who provides exceptional insight into what it takes for successful security programs and implementations … full bio