With so much to do and so little time, it can be hard to make security a priority for your Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). But, ignoring this can be a big mistake for any business. With the number of hacking incidents on the rise worldwide even a small mistake can lead to dire consequences and big monetary loss. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to secure your business in both physical and digital world. Below we outline 5 ways to do just that.
- Disable admin rights
In a small enterprise, it’s likely that you (and the few employees or partners you have working with you) all have equal admin rights for accessing important files, folders and even entire management systems. While this is likely to work well in the early days, a growing SME should start gradually filtering admin rights so that only a select few have unfettered access to everything. This is particularly true if some staff are only performing specific tasks rather than doing a little bit of everything, as there’s no need to risk the consequence of someone abusing their admin rights. Restrict the most confidential information and the highest level of power to those who really need it.
- Get rid of your paperwork securely
Given how much of our work happens in a digital space, many of us have forgotten how important it is to properly dispose of our paperwork. Everything from your business bank statements to the minutes you write in a client meeting need to be shredded to bolster your SME against attack from criminals seeking to take advantage of material that isn’t intended for their eyes. It might sound old fashioned, but invest in a paper shredder and make the time to dispose of your paperwork properly rather than chucking it in the bin as it is: it could be the difference between your SME staying secure and becoming the victim of fraudulent activity.
- Use fraud-proof checks
Similarly, now that many monetary transactions are completed online, we have become a little blasé about the security of the checks the write and receive. However, if you want to make your SME secure, it really will pay off to invest in fraud-proof checks – it’s thought that approximately 5% of revenue is lost to fraud by businesses every year. Quickbooks checks are currently the most secure checks on the market and because of their security coating, chemically reactive paper and sophisticated holograms, you’ll be doing a great deal to bolster the security of your SME.
- Stop ignoring phishing attempts
You may already understand the importance of security for your business’s website, but are you paying attention to the threats that are coming into your email inbox every day? Small businesses are often the targets of phishing scams with criminals attempting to penetrate your business to steal money, data or anything else they consider to be valuable. But worst of all, many SMEs are ignoring the warning signs. If you’re receiving phishing emails, take note instead of marking them up as spam straight away. This doesn’t mean you should respond (in fact, it’s recommended that you do not respond at all), but you should see it as an opportunity to spot who is targeting you, and consider how you’re going to use these emails as a prompt to increase your security defenses. For example, do you need to learn more about phishing and other forms of cyber crime, and could your security software benefit from being updated?
- Get serious about changing passwords
Finally, your passwords are perhaps your business’s weakest point of defense – especially if you use the same password across multiple platforms, or haven’t updated it recently. While it’s perfectly understandable to do this (it’s hard to remember ever-changing passwords), you’re really putting your SME at risk. Use a password manager if you think you’re likely to forget your changing passwords, or at least set yourself monthly reminders to switch your passwords up.
