People who are just starting business tend to make lot of mistakes. Hey, don’t take it personally: it goes for pretty much every business owner on the planet. But, of course, some mistakes are much worse than others.
One of the most common mistakes with business startups can be found in IT security. Many business owners think that they can get away with cutting corners, either for time reasons or to save a bit of money. Big mistake! You have to make sure your business is fully protected.
THE RISK YOU PLACE YOUR BUSINESS IN
Costs of recovery and repairs
If something disastrous could happen to your equipment, you’ll have to look into replacements, repairs, or even recovery. And you’re not getting all of that for free! Working with the right IT company can help keep costs down to a minimum. Buty you should get your security strengthened now. Prevention is better than cure.
Employee data fraud
Employees tend to have a lot of personal information stored in your databases. It’s possible they’ll even have credit card details stored somewhere in your system. You’ll certainly have plenty of information about them in your business records. If a criminal manages to get hold of any of this information? They could go on to commit fraud with that data. This may result in employees taking legal action against you. Speaking of which…
Legal action
It’s not just employee data you need to protect. There’s customer data to consider, too. Keeping customer data safe is one of the most important aspects of modern business. The law makes it clear that a company will get into a lot of trouble if this data gets into the wrong hands. Those customers are well within their rights to take legal action against you.
Competitors
If you’re reading about building a successful business, then you’re going to come across the word “data” a lot. In fact, we’ve already mentioned data several times in this article! All that data you have needs to be protected, with the safety of your customers and employees being your first and foremost concern. But there’s another risk that’s much less talked about. And that’s the risk of corporate espionage. Your data gives you the competitive edge. Allowing competitors to have access could be extremely dangerous.
And what about your business plans? Let’s say you have a plan for an amazing new service or product. The documentation at hand makes your designs clear. But a security breach takes place, and the information is leaked. You’ve lost that all-important element of surprise. Ad your competitors have also been given a chance to prepare for competition!
THE MEASURES YOU NEED TO TAKE
First of all: take a look at your IT infrastructure as a whole. If you general infrastructure is inadequately protected, there will be clear indicators. The most common (and alarming!) is a complete lack of Internet security. You’ll also need to consider the physical security of the hardware. Is the building itself protected against theft?
That lack of Internet security will eventually see malware getting onto your computer systems. A lot of employees these days have more freedom than ever when it comes to what they can download and install to get the job done. Downloading files that are infected is the most common cause of malware. So it’s vital you invest in Internet security and take steps to train your employees with regards to IT security.
You need to pay close attention to the security of the devices that your employees bring to work with them. Modern businesses allow employees to bring a lot of personal devices to office, and even to use them in work. These include mobile phones, tablets, and laptops. This isn’t something you should stop, exactly. It can really help with productivity. But you need to make sure you have the right security measures in place. Each employee needs to follow your security measures when they use their own device. Looking into endpoint security solutions should also reduce much of the risk.
Speaking of employees, you’ll also need to review how user privileges are handed out in the workplace. Modern businesses use a lot of virtual collaboration. A combination of cloud services and documents on local shared networks has changed the way we do our work, and often for the better. But the information held in many of these files isn’t going to be for everyone’s eyes, is it? You can’t just allow anyone on outside to have a look at them. This is why you have to be vigilant when it comes to digital user privileges.
