Considering resource constraints and other challenges, it’s not surprising that many entrepreneurs, small business owners, and startup founders, have a hands-on approach towards various tasks. Cybersecurity often doesn’t top their list of priorities, but it’s time to change the narrative. Yes, data privacy laws and compliance needs make it mandatory to spend on cybersecurity, but businesses need to think beyond that. As a small business owner, you may need to engage cybersecurity experts to train your managers and executives, or even engage the security community and hire hackers to hack your company’s recorder.
In this post, we are doing a review of the best cybersecurity practices that small companies need to adopt.
- Protect your devices and network resources
Every device that’s connected to a network works as a computer. In other words, something like IP video cameras are as important as standard laptops used at the workplace. Figure out the network assets, resources and devices that are more vulnerable to cyberattacks and protect them behind firewalls. Another good idea is to use network segmentation, which involves dividing the networks into subnetworks, so that compromise on one doesn’t impact others.
- Engage the security community
Big companies are spending huge on bug bounty programs and hiring ethical hackers, but contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise. By engaging the security community, you can find flaws and vulnerabilities within the security perimeters and network infrastructure, and these can be fixed before an external hacker tries to exploit the system.
- Focus on insider threats
A considerable number of cybersecurity breaches can be traced back to internal sources. Employees and executives are on the forefront of ensuring cybersecurity and they must be trained. Help them understand the common concerns and risks, allow them to take decisions, but make them responsible for their actions. It is also absolutely necessary to focus on password protection. Ensure that employees are using long & strong passwords, are relying on a password manager, and have the habit of changing default details, like usernames and passwords immediately.
Other aspects that matter
Finally, create an incident response plan. Encourage people to report incidents, and create a pathway that managers must follow, in case of a security breach. Access rights must be managed in an improved way too. The management should know who has access to what resources, and all rights must be edited, revoked, updated, and modified, as and when needed, without delays.