Cybersecurity: 3 Ways to Protect Your Small Business from No Good Cybercriminals

What types of cybersecurity safeguards does your small business employ? Are your employees required to change their passwords bi-weekly? Does your staff use company approved technology equipment, or do they work from their personal devices? Do you regularly back up your data files?

If no one has updated your office’s computer software and doesn’t make sure to connect to secure Wi-Fi, you are putting your business at risk of a cyberattack. Small business insurance will protect your business from the physical burglary of your product and company equipment, but only cyber insurance will cover cyberattacks, cyber theft and malware damages.

Forty-three percent of all cyberattacks are deployed on small businesses. If you want to protect your business, you need the insurance to help back you up.

Here are three ways to protect your small business from nefarious cyber crooks.

Train Your Staff on Cybersecurity Measures

One of the first mistakes a small business owner makes is falsely believing that their business is too small for a cybercriminal to be interested in hacking. As the statistic above shows, this is untrue; no business is too small in the eye of a hacker.

And guess what? The way to your private data is through an untrained employee. According to PR Newswire, 90 percent of all cyberattacks are successful because of employee negligence. Using phishing scams and other tricks, cybercriminals are able to deceive employees into believing they are sharing log-in credentials, financial information and system IDs with the boss or another employee. Providing your staff with cybersecurity training will help you to avoid such snafus and keep them up-to-date on the latest scams hackers are trying to pull.

Outfit Your Office with a Virtual Data Room

Hackers generally target company email because sensitive data about the business and clients can generally be found on the email server. To keep this from happening to your business, Small Business Trends recommends using a virtual data room, or VDR. A VDR is essentially an online storehouse where your business keeps its private data. VDRs use encryption-based technology, a technology hackers have a notoriously hard time cracking.

Invest in Cybersecurity Insurance

Nevertheless, no matter how careful you and your employees are about cyber data storage and sharing data, there is always the possibility that a cybercriminal will gain access to your system and steal, sell or destroy your company’s sensitive data. The monetary damages that can arise after a cyberattack are as such that 60 percent of small businesses who suffer a security breach go out of business six months later. A cyber insurance plan, much like a small business insurance plan, covers you for damages and court fees; it’ll even cover restitution costs. Should your business get hit so hard that it causes you to lose clients, cyber insurance will even pay for business interruption. With cyber insurance, you’re insured from the business failure rate of the 60 percent of other businesses who were hit before you. Cyber insurance is an investment in your business.

To keep it thriving, your small business needs room to grow, and to grow, it needs protection. Invest in a small business insurance plan AND a cyber insurance plan with CoverHound and our sister company, CyberPolicy today.