When it comes to improving a small business’ cybersecurity, every employee can make a difference. From the CEO to the newest intern, each individual can make decisions to keep a company safe, and we want to highlight some of the best cybersecurity habits you can establish to play a positive role in keeping your company secure. Strong cybersecurity habits don’t just stop at work, though, because of the rise of hybrid work environments. By establishing good cybersecurity habits at work, you can keep your personal data safe when you work from home, ensuring hackers can’t spread their attacks between your work and home!
Browsing Securely
Learning the best practices for browsing the internet securely can go a long way in protecting your data. While most regular activities on the web pose little threat, users can be at risk when browsing for unique or hard-to-find information. Hackers are always making malicious websites that perform drive by downloads or encourage users to download harmful documents. When looking for new information on the web, remain within trusted sources as often as possible and exercise extreme caution when needing to do further research.
Many cybersecurity services also provide tools that can help keep browsing more secure. For example, many endpoint protection services offer URL filtering, which can block websites that are likely to be malicious. Many of those same tools will also keep a repository of malicious URLs that the service will automatically look through before allowing a user to access a website. Small business owners should work with their IT department or a local IT consultant to implement the tools that will keep their browsing secure!
Remembering a VPN
Working remotely sometimes means using public Wi-Fi, and this can be dangerous if the proper precautions aren’t taken. It has become common for malicious actors to intercept and look through the data people use on public internet because when a Wi-Fi signal is open to everyone, anyone can sift through it. Using a VPN when working in public areas such as coffee shops and libraries is one of the simple cybersecurity habits that goes a long way in mitigating this threat. It is important to remember that this is also true for cell phone usage. Hackers can sift through unprotected data on any device, and they have developed malware that can infect phones and tablets as well as computers.
Completing Cybersecurity Training
While every employee has important tasks demanding their attention, it is critical to remember that cybersecurity training is an important factor in developing strong cybersecurity habits. Good training will always be focused on threats in your industry or improving skills that will prevent phishing and other cyberattacks. Having regular refreshers on the best habits to implement into your workflows is critical to remaining vigilant, which is the best way to prevent human error that all too often leads to successful cyberattacks.
Additionally, small business owners should work with their IT department or a local IT consultant to ensure the cybersecurity training they implement provides the most value for employees. When employees can clearly see the value in the training they receive, it is more likely they will complete the training and keep the company, and themselves, safe.
Summary
Building strong cybersecurity habits can be a difficult task for a small business if they don’t have the right help. Finding the right cybersecurity tools to implement, reminding employees to use their VPN, and successfully rolling out cybersecurity training takes a lot of time and resources. Our team here at Robinett Consulting think small businesses deserve specialized help every step of the way, so if your small business needs to improve its daily cybersecurity habits, then our team is waiting to have a complimentary consultation with you!
