The unfortunate reality for the millions of small business owners across the country is that data breaches are becoming more common all the time, and now seem to be increasingly targeted at these independent enterprises specifically. That may lead some entrepreneurs to seek new methods to effectively manage their sensitive information, and fortunately there are many ways to do so.
Usually, when trying to prevent a data breach, some of the biggest positive steps small businesses can take is to simply be more careful in their everyday dealings. The reason so many small businesses are now being attacked by hackers for these incidents is that they often do not have even basic security measures in place, such as anti-virus software and firewalls, let alone having a full-time IT worker on staff.
Thus, taking the time to install at least some of these measures, and properly train staff about the ways in which they should deal with emails carrying attachments, and other typical signs of phishing attacks, may be quite helpful in reducing such risk. In addition, ensuring that employees are using complex, secure passwords, rather than those with just a few letters and which are commonly used online, is another great step to prevent someone from forcing their way into a company’s systems.
Of course, some businesses suffer breaches without their specifically having done anything wrong, and which are instead caused by third parties that did not do enough to protect the sensitive information. In these cases, files can be misplaced, sent to the wrong people, or simply mishandled, and would nonetheless constitute a breach. For this reason, owners may want to thoroughly vet any outside companies they deal with to make sure their data protection standards are up to snuff and that they do not pose an additional security risk above and beyond the other hazards smaller businesses may face daily.
When dealing with data breach fallout, owners may want to look into the kind of small business insurance options that can help them deal with these specific problems. Affordable tech insurance plans may allow independent companies to keep costs as low as possible; in some cases the total amount companies may have to pay for breach remediation can stretch into the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.
