Cyber Hack - Keep Protect Yourself

The worst business nightmare: the servers are down! Site hacked. Security compromised. Data stolen, corrupted or destroyed. Worse, your resources used for nefarious purposes.

In this digital age, when websites, social media accounts and email are where most of our business takes place, a compromised web presence can spell disaster. Even when the technical issues are resolved and data recovered, client dissatisfaction during the outage can seriously damage a company's reputation.

Not just companies, though. Even personal websites can be attacked. Whether to get some information, use your site for their own purposes, or just hijack your identity to commit a crime, cyber criminals do not make exceptions when there is something they want.

This is why it is important to take a good look at your site's security. Remember; your client data is a sacred trust, especially if you store credit card or other sensitive information. Spare no effort or expense to protect it. The basics first.

Forewarned is Forearmed

Know thy enemy. Read the hacker watch sites. Keep up to date with developments in the online security fields, and make sure you keep updating your protection.

Updates: Keep all software up to date. A good webhosting company should keep you covered on this. If you have your own servers, then make sure the network administrator and all related personnel go on regular refresher courses to stay up to date. Create a security protocol to be followed to ensure multiple layers of protection for your site.

Regularly hold briefings to keep the entire company aware of security requirements. Difficult passwords. Enforce regular password changes.

SSL: Make sure you have Secure Sockets Layer certificates in place. These often come bundled with your web hosting, are inexpensive and strongly recommended.

WAF: Web Application Firewalls are subscription based cloud services that act as a gateway, deflecting the bad guys and buying you peace of mind for a very low price. Get it.

Plugins: If you use WordPress, there are several very good free and paid plugins that can help deflect automated attacks.

Encryption: encryption data goes a long way towards thwarting hackers. Statistics show that 80% of cyber attacks targeted vulnerable businesses with not security plan in place. Many small businesses do not take the time to create security barriers around their data assets, even though two thirds of small businesses under attack actually have to close afterwards, unable to sustain the damage.

WI FI Use a password. Better yet, use a wired network, which is harder to breach, and provides faster internet speeds.

These are the basic precautions every company should take. Make sure to invest time and effort into implementing these, and more!

The writer contributes to several websites on topics related to finance, business, marketing and branding.