business safety and security tipsStarting a new business is hard enough without worrying about someone swooping in and taking it all away from you. In this case, it isn’t even your competitors that you necessarily have to be wary of, but instead hackers. New companies in particular are an easy target for them, because you don’t yet have all your security measures in place nor do you have the budget to invest in professional data security specialists to come in and improve your security.

Don’t make yourself into a target and don’t let a misclick put an end to all of your hard work. Instead, start following these steps to make your new business safe and secure today:

1. Know The Security Risks

It’s hard to protect yourself against the unknown, and, while you don’t necessarily need to understand the intricate complexities of coding that allow hackers to do what they do, you do need to know the common methods of attack. Take the Cloud, for instance. It can feel incredibly safe to have a business Cloud account. After all, you can increase or decrease the amount of data you use and pay for. What you might not know, however, is that your data is still at risk. If an employee with a compromised computer were to access your account, then a hacker can still get in.

Even understanding the issues at hand abstractly can help you come up with strategies to protect yourself, but to really get started in protecting your online and cloud-based data you will want to start by following the guides and suggestions from security companies like McAfee.

2. Limit Access to Data

One such way to protect your data on the Cloud and elsewhere is to limit access. Employees should only have access to data they need, and similarly, your company should only have access to data it needs. Delete unnecessary information and limit what you collect to streamline operations and minimize a hacking breach.

3. Get Your Employees on Board

As endpoints (the devices that are used to access your company’s servers) are often seen as the weakest part of any security system, it is wise to get your employees on board. What this means is that they need to go through their entire digital presence and optimize it so that they are less of a risk.

4. Keep Your Systems Up to Date

Delete software you don’t use and keep everything else up to date to enable the latest security updates to work for you.

5. Hire a Professional

When you have the budget, it can be wise to hire a data security specialist or white hat hacker to attempt to breach your company from the outside. They will then give you a full list of recommendations on what you can do to protect your weak spots.

Prevention is the best way to confront would-be hackers, but do remember that even the biggest companies with the best resources in the world do still get hacked. In light of this, having contingency plans are essential to get your company back up on its feet and fighting for another day.