With so much of our business being based online these days, and the technology used by people like hackers getting smarter and smarter, our online or cyber security is something that really needs to be at the top of our priority lists. 

A UK study at the National Cyber Security Center found that online businesses have a one in two chance of being subject to a cyber attack, which is pretty shocking when you think about it. 

So making sure that you are taking steps to protect yourself, your business, and your customers is really important. With that in mind, here are some steps to help protect your online business so that you can keep your business running smoothly and free from cyber attacks.

Manage Risk

Think about the assets around your business, and from there you can assess the risk, or potential risks, that they have for the business. You may have products and things in storage that have the risk of being stolen. But really, ranking the highest risk to the lowest, should start with things like your laptops, data, and smartphones, as these will all hold really key information that could be costly if leaked or just lost.

Making sure you have done a risk assessment means you should know where the weaknesses are. Make plans to address those risks as quickly as you can.

Passwords

Whether it is just you at home running the business or you have a small team, having passwords and changing them regularly is really important. Keep the passwords quite long and irregular too, so that they are hard to guess. This can help to keep things secure and protected, and can also stop there being some issues from user error too.

Customer Data

If you have a business where you sell to customers online, then making sure that their information is safe and stored in the right way is so important, especially after changes in the European Union and data protection. 

So are you keeping information secure? You need to also be thinking about confirming the identity of your customers and clients, as it helps to protect your business from fraudulent activity. Not only that but it allows you to do a KYC check and allow to you to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. Then you can be sure that you aren’t going to be sending off products to the wrong person or giving out information where you shouldn’t be.

Prevent Viruses

There are many ways that you can get a computer virus, and that can be from opening an attachment in an email from someone that you don’t know, to clicking on suspicious links or using websites that aren’t secure (especially when buying something). 

So always make sure that you know who things are from, check the sites that you are using, and importantly, have antivirus software and programs in place on your computers. It can be an upfront expense but it does make a massive difference in reducing risk. And your computers are one of the number one places that hackers want to go to. 

It also wouldn’t hurt if you can afford it to have separate computers or iPads for personal use so accidents don’t happen on the business computer or computers depending on the size of your business.

Final Thoughts

One last word to help you stay secure; Running regular backups and security scans on your computers and equipment is another important step, to reduce risk and avoid losing data.

Our cyber security is so often the thing in our business that we neglect to think about until it’s too late. So do your self and your a business a favour and implement these ideas into your daily running tasks.

I hope you have found this post useful. If so please give it a share on your favourite social media platform.

As ever if you have any questions or want to share your thoughts then please leave a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

With Grace and Gratitude

Karen

How I Make A Living Online

I make my living online, through affiliate marketing and I learnt everything I needed to know about building such a business through Wealthy Affiliate. 

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