Many small businesses across the country store lots of extremely sensitive and important information on their computer systems, but new data suggests they may not take the basic steps necessary to ensure that they have simple safeguards in place if something goes disastrously wrong with those machines.
Today, close to two out of five small business owners or executives say that they spend more time cleaning their desks than they do backing up data on their computers, according to a new survey from AVG Technologies. Another two in five said that they also spent more time ordering new business cards than following this basic security protocol. However, three in 10 say that the data stored on their systems is of a sensitive nature.
Fortunately, 75 percent of those polled do run automated systems backups at some point, but about a quarter do not require their employees to do the same at least once a week, the report said. In addition, close to half have also suffered some sort of data loss on a mobile device that went missing, because they weren’t backing up the information on those handsets to the cloud. Of those who do rely on the cloud to back up data, though, 64 percent said that the security of those options was a concern.
“Our research shows that while the great majority of small businesses in North America are relatively savvy about the importance of backup, there is still plenty of market education to do, especially when it comes to mobile and cloud platforms,” said Mike Foreman, AVG’s general manager for small business. “In today’s mobile and data-driven world it’s particularly shocking to hear how business owners still spend more time on physical-world activities like tidying their desks and ordering new business cards than digital ones, which suggests that, despite evidence cybercriminals see value in small business data, business owners themselves are still failing to appreciate the true value of the data held within their systems.”
Owners concerned about data security in general may want to consider the ways in which small business insurance can help to insulate them from potential fallout from a data breach. Tech insurance can help to save companies thousands of dollars or more in the event of a data breach that exposes sensitive information for either themselves or their customers and clients. Typically, the cost of these incidents can stretch into the tens of thousands of dollars and beyond.
