4 Simple Ways to Protect Your Business From Breaches, Fraud

Data is at once the most important and most sensitive aspect of any modern business. Despite this, many small business owners neglect to take proper precautions to protect personal information. Every transaction represents a real person who entrusts your company with their name, address, and access to their payment methods. If your enterprise becomes the target of an attempted data breach or scam, all of that private information can be exploited by cybercriminals for personal gain. 

Fraud and data breaches can happen to absolutely anyone, so it is important to know the basics of how to protect your company. These tips from the Englewood Florida Chamber of Commerce should get you on the right track toward safeguarding your business.

1. Provide Basic Security Training

Data protection starts by educating yourself and your employees on simple best practices. Every account related to your company should be protected with a strong password that is updated on a regular basis. Strong passwords include numbers, special characters, or memorable phrases that an attacker will struggle to guess. Experts also recommend avoiding common words that may be weak against dictionary attacks.

Some other basic company policies that can protect your data include auditing employees for suspicious behavior and limiting data access. Valuable data should only be accessible to high-level admins who require access to carry out their duties.

2. Practice Safe Communication with PDFs

Personal information is sometimes relayed through communicative documents. Files that leave your company's sphere of influence via email or other communication methods are more susceptible to unauthorized access by cybercriminals. You can encrypt a PDF file to protect against outside exposure. If you are trying to send several files to one client or customer, a PDF merger could be used to simplify the process. You can use this free merge tool to combine relevant files and pages, and you can password protect one file instead of multiple. 

Additionally, when you are preparing to invoice a client, an invoice generator is a great option as it provides customizable templates that can include images or logos of your choice. Make sure that the invoice generator you choose allows you to download the document as a PDF for easy encryption.

3. Utilize Safe Technology Solutions

Software and infrastructure account for the more behind-the-scenes aspects of data security. A reliable and secure hosting service can keep your web presence protected and provide cloud servers for professionally storing information or important files.

All computer hardware should be equipped with up-to-date cybersecurity software that serves as the most important line of defense against malicious attackers. Your IT team should include a security expert to maintain protection and respond to threats. In the absence of a dedicated IT team, you can outsource your security needs to an outside agency.

4. Be Prepared to Recover From a Potential Breach

If a breach does occur, you stand to lose irreplaceable data and incur massive financial losses. Your company should have a breach response plan, which includes isolating affected systems and communicating the breach to customers and other relevant parties.

To mitigate the overall damage of a breach ahead of time, all business data should be regularly backed up to additional drives. Consider covering your enterprise with cyber insurance to offset the monetary costs that you are liable for when client information is stolen from your business. 

Be Vigilant Against Cyber Attacks

It is common sense to protect your business from crime, but not everyone recognizes the threat of cybercriminals. Small business owners who do not have the necessary defenses in place can be struck by a scam and not even realize it until it's too late. Taking preventative action against fraud and other digital crimes is essential for every company, so teach your employees how to merge and password protect important files, and keep their programs up-to-date for greater security against cyber fraud.