The mainstream media regularly reports on data breaches in multi-national companies or large corporations, but smaller businesses are also at risk if they don’t take steps to secure their data. With many businesses utilising the opportunities and advantages provided by cloud accounting and digitisation, it is important to ensure your online security is firmed up to ensure you don’t suffer any breaches. Businesses are often targeted by criminals looking to hack into their accounts for reasons of scams or fraud.
More businesses are falling victim to the pitfalls of poor security. There is nothing worse than coming into work to find that you have fallen victim to a scam, and it is important to take all necessary steps to ensure this won’t happen to you.
Therefore, use these four tips to ensure your business’s data is not compromised.
1. Data Recovery
Regardless of the size of your business, data is a precious element. Losing your business’s data as a result of disaster or a hardware failure can be incredibly detrimental to your business and can even lead to closure in extreme cases.
Recommendations:
- Maintain a physical backing of all the files you have on premises
- Ensure that you have saved your documents correctly to the cloud computing system – it offers greater security
- Utilise service providers that operate cloud based technology
2. Accessing Information
Regardless of how trustworthy and dedicated your team is, people can still make mistakes. It is recommended to use a targeted security strategy, as well as do the following:
- Ensure your team is trained in the ways of digital security
- Utilise passphrases as opposed to keywords
- Ensure your network is secured by using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to ensure people can browse and send emails without putting your data infrastructure in the firing line
3. Be Careful With Social Media
Email phishing scams have evolved since the days of dictators and princes wanting to put money back into your account. Nowadays, phishing emails are far more intricate, highly personalised, and often provide deep business and personal insights. You might be wondering how scammers attain this information? This is done through social media, where scammers can have access to the information disclosed on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
Recommendations:
- Don’t post sensitive business information on social media channels
- Provide guidelines for your staff to ensure they don’t inadvertently disclose potentially sensitive business information
- Firm up security by installing protective software solutions which deter malicious emails making their way to your inbox
4. Password Strategy
Direct Management, like other bookkeeping providers, handle sensitive data belonging to our clients. Therefore, we have a strong emphasis on password management. It is important to maintain a strong password strategy, including following these rules:
- Use a strong password management strategy
- Don’t utilise passwords that can be easily figured out or remembered. The first thing a hacker seeks out on social media is indicators of spouse and children’s names, dates of birth and pet names.
- Utilise password management software, including passphrase or random password generation
Follow these four tips to ensuring your data is protected. Hackers and scammers are constantly at work, looking for any sign of a potential breach, so make sure your business is prepared and that you won’t have to suffer the consequences caused by poor security measures.