Your business needs better Cybersecurity habits.
Involved with growing a business? If you start developing good cybersecurity habits now it will save you a LOT of heartache later. On the other hand, if you ignore cybersecurity it will become a pain point for you. You’re a modern business, you’re going to have modern challenges.
Your business or nonprofit may be doing everything in its power to make the world a better place. News flash: cybercriminals don’t care. They’re happy to bankrupt your organization if it means they get paid. So it goes.
I’m certain that you’ve recently researched or invested in a cloud application to make something your business does easier. I’m going to take a wild guess and say no one asked the vendor about their cybersecurity practices. We assume their cybersecurity is solid… but how do you know?
A Brave New World
Look, I get it. As business evolves we are all rapidly adding on cloud-based systems and grappling with the challenges of remote worker. We’re also exposing ourselves to cybersecurity threats like ransomware, malware, and data theft in the process.
Some small and growing businesses are aware of the cybersecurity implications, but many choose to turn a blind eye. They say things like “we’re too small” and “no one cares we exist”. But that’s just not true.
43% of all cyber attacks targeted small businesses
-Verizon Business 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report
Growing businesses are dealing with an alarming sophistication of attacks as they step into the limelight. Visibility is a good thing for sales and marketing, but it also makes your business a more likely target for cyber crime. Regardless of the size of your business, the volume of attacks in many cyber threat categories has increased over 50% in the last year alone.
86% of data breaches were for financial gain – up from 71% in from 2019
43% of breaches were attacks on web applications, more than double the results from last year.
-Verizon Business 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report
The truth is our cloud-based systems are great for productivity, but they’re terrible for security when poorly managed.
The IT Modern IT Dilemma
So how do you support your team across all of these systems, manage their passwords and logins, and shelter their daily activity from malicious cyber attacks, all without impacting productivity, and avoid spending a fortune? I call this “The Modern IT Dilemma”.
This dilemma is at its worse for small businesses and startups since their Owner Operators are already wearing so many hats. They think they don’t have time or can’t afford decent cybersecurity, so they do literally nothing.
I once had a small business owner look me dead in the eye and say “…yeah, but cybersecurity is inconvenient. I don’t like it and I don’t want it. We’ll take our chances.”
Cybersecurity can be a scary topic and gets fairly complex as your organization grows. Still, there are simple habits you and your team can start doing today that will help protect your business. They don’t even require you or your team to be technical, just willing.
Even better, all of these things can be done for next to no cost for small businesses, and in many cases they’re outright free. For businesses experiencing rapid growth, implementing these solutions will cost money, but they become cost effective as you avoid cybersecurity breaches and their associated downtime. Regardless of your situation, they have the potential to make your team more productive as well.
This series of articles will highlight 3 simple habits and practices that any business can implement for little to no cost that will improve their security AND productivity. Enjoy!