Being a business owner is a lucrative occupation, but it is also a responsible one. Sure, you have more authority, more respect and earn more money than the rest of your staff, but this also means that you need to worry about things no one else pays attention to. One of them is digital safety of your company. The internet is a hostile environment and even though it may sometimes seem friendly on the outside, there are hidden dangers lurking everywhere. With this in mind, here are some business practices that will make your company safer online.
Raising Awareness
One of the most important things about raising the safety of your business to a higher level lies in educating your staff. Let’s say you have the absolutely best security system in the business. It would still do you no good if your employees accidentally slip out the company password or insert their malware infected USB drive into a company computer. What you need to do is raise awareness of the immediate and real danger that hackers pose. Also, you could try and teach them a few new tricks, like how to make safe password hints and where to expect threats from while online.
Use Reliable Design Platform
When you want to build a fortress (a digital one, in this situation) you need to start by making its foundations as solid as possible. This usually means choosing a suitable platform that will allow the installation of various plugins that may help boost the safety of your page. One of the most obvious choices is WordPress with its plethora of security software. However, if you are making an e-store, you might want to go with something bit more industry specific. Here, Magento would be the safest choice.
Email and Social Media
It is common knowledge that most hackers use either emails or social media baits to try and draw your password out. This phenomenon is called phishing. By sending you links disguised as something else, hackers usually take you to a website that for some reason requires your username and password. Unfortunately, once you enter this information, you are likely to find out that this page leads nowhere and it was all just a scam with the purpose of drawing out your password. Because of this, you should never click on links that come from unreliable sources and never use the same password for your personal and business-related accounts.
Sometimes Isolation is the Best
Even though having everything connected is more practical, sometimes you would do well to isolate certain vital functions from the rest of your network. There are things like payroll or human resources that you simply cannot risk to expose to the aforementioned dangers of the web. You also need to be very careful to whom you give access to when it comes to these particular sections. Not all danger comes from the outside from some unknown and malicious adolescent hacker. You can’t trust absolutely anyone, even if they are on your team.
Conclusion:
As you can see, making your business a safer place is not easy. However, defending what is yours never is. Remember that you built this business from scratch and, regardless of how well you are doing, there will always be those willing to bring your down. Sometimes to improve their own chances in the business world and sometimes just because they can. Luckily, by following just these few simple steps, you will no longer be an easy prey they expected to face.
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via Dan Radak
Dan Radak is a marketing professional with ten years of experience. He is currently working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies. He is also a coauthor on several technology websites and regular contributor to Technivorz.
