5 Pillars of Small Business Cyber Hygiene

5 Pillars of Small Business Cyber Hygiene

Take control of your business' cyber health by building your Pillars of Cyber Hygiene. We live our lives and run our businesses in a digital world. Boot up your understanding of these simple and easy steps to be proactive in keeping your client data secure and your business running smoothly. Pillars of your Cyber Fortress

Small and Micro Businesses handle a lot of client data with a legal obligation for protection both in storage and transit. Protecting your business from data theft, ransomware, email phishing, and fraud is a daily challenge that requires a proactive approach. With cyber crime on the rise, hackers pick on Micro and Small Business as easy targets because they lack IT/Security resources and know-how.

How can Micro and Small Businesses shield their systems and client data from the cyber risks? The answer to this is simple - get off the easy target list! Basic Cyber Hygiene can stop your business from being am easy victim. Hackers are predators of convenience. Build the Pillars of Cyber Hygiene and be proactive in defending your business from the onslaught of high frequency low effect cyber attacks. Cyber Hygiene Pillar #1: Password Manager

Basic password hygiene is the founding Pillar of Cyber Hygiene. Micro and Small Businesses tend to overlook this vital cyber hygiene practice, whether personal employee passwords or passwords on workspace devices. If you reuse passwords for multiple accounts, sooner or later, one data breach will cascade through your accounts and you risk losing everything! Check to see if your passwords have been hacked now.

The main objective in password health is to have unique passwords for every account. This is far simpler than it sounds! Using Password Managers make having unique passwords a trivial task. Like digital wallets for all of your credentials, Password Managers can create randomized unique password for each of your accounts and integrate into Web Browsers, Mobile Apps, and Desktop Software so the whole process of password hygiene becomes a point and click affair.

How to make strong passwords:

• More than 16 characters long with alphanumeric and special characters *&!_#

• Randomly generated and UNIQUE for every account

• Amp up your password strength with Two Factor Authentication (2FA) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  

Cyber Hygiene Pillar #2: Backup & Encrypt

Client data is vital for your Micro or Small Business as you use data to make essential decisions surrounding the everyday operations of the business and its long-time vision. Backing up and encryption your data is mandatory for any small business. Whether the data is private client information, sales numbers, human resources employee data, or pictures of your kids, you cannot risk losing any of it. Making backups ensures that you can recover lost data in the event of a data breach, theft, or lost/stolen computers.  

Encryption is a standard practice for companies that handle client data in most jurisdictions. Data encryption ensures data even if a malicious actor steals your files, they cannot read the file content without a password to decrypt the file. Cyber Hygiene combo practice: encrypt your data with randomized and unique passwords stored in your Password Manager!

Cyber Hygiene Pillar #3: Firewall

Using a Firewall is a key cyber hygiene practice in this digital era, where almost all small business' operations take place online. A Firewall is a software or hardware tool that blocks malicious websites and threat actors from infiltrating users networks as they browse the internet.

Firewalls are simple plug & play devices that can intercept online traffic and execute network protection protocols, including:

• Malicious website blocking

• Explicit content filtering

• Pornographic content blocking

• Dark Web site blocking

• Ad filtering and Ad Blocking

• Gambling site blocking

• Port forwarding blocking
  

A Firewall's content filtering and blocking capabilities protect Micro and Small Business computes, phones, and users from interacting with malicious actors, corrupted files, and suspicious sites.

Cyber Hygiene Pillar #4: Anti-Malware / Antivirus

Cyber hygiene for small businesses calls for installing effective anti-malware software that scans workspace devices, assesses threat exposure levels, prevents or minimizes current cyber-attacks, and averts future attacks. Small businesses must regularly update their anti-malware software and applications to cope with the rapidly changing threat landscape.

Fortunately for the Micro & Small Business owner, anti-malware and antivirus solutions are easily deployed, quick to install, and run in the background.

Cyber Hygiene Pillar #5: Vulnerability Management

Just like a routine inspection of your car, Small Businesses must set baselines and track routine maintenance of their digital assets. Managing vulnerabilities is standard cyber hygiene practice and helps in staying on top of know cyber risks. Vulnerability Management may sound complicated and technical however with some simple tricks, this process can be as simple as point & click!

The objective of Vulnerability Management is keeping track of software patches and updates. If you can schedule a meeting, you can manage cyber vulnerabilities! Set a calendar reminder for your employees to check for Operating System Updates every week and reboot their computers every Friday night. This simple task will ensure automated updates are applied and low-grade malware is flushed from their systems.

Spicy Protect recommends checking your cyber vulnerabilities at least once a month, and ideally 24/7. 

To check whether or not your business has cyber vulnerabilities that make it easy to attack, get your Cyber Score right now 👉 Cyber Score 💯