Cyber attacks to any company can be devastating but if you are in the startup stage of your business a cyber attack could put you out of business very quickly. In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the best ways to protect your startup from cyber attacks.
Backup your data
The first step to protecting your startup is by taking data backups regularly because even with the best security systems you can come undone by a new vulnerability, therefore backing up your data is a great way of protecting your business.
You can backup your data in the cloud fairly cheaply and we would also recommend having a physical copy of your data which you keep on an external hard drive, just make sure to encrypt both of these backups as you could lose them and your data would be open to anyone that found them.
We recommend hard copies of your data because your backups in the cloud can be hacked and access can be ransomed back to you through something called Ransomware. Ransomware can cost businesses thousands and if you are in the startup stage you don’t want to be losing your data or having to pay for it back either.
Educate your staff
Viruses, malware and ransomware can easily be brought into your network if your staff are not educated on the risks that they pose. With 1 in 50 emails containing malware, it’s very important to train your staff on the best practices.
Tyler from Firewall Tech says that “When running a startup you should make every effort to ensure your staff members know about your companies security policies and if they don’t know your best practices you are opening up your business to cyberattacks”.
In your security policies, you should deal with how your staff should deal with emails for example. The staff could be limited from downloading attachments or they should scan every attachment before opening them.
Your policy could also indicate that links within emails are not to be clicked on if they aren’t from a trusted source or how to react when you have an email saying your account has been exposed which is usually an attempt at a phishing email.
Having policies in place can help your staff to understand what to do when potential security threats arise, without them your staff will have to make their best judgement and with attacks getting more elaborate you could be opening your network up to malicious users.
Audit your security
New security threats arise all the time and if you don’t keep up with them your business can be vulnerable to an attack. Because of this, you will need someone at your company who monitors new attacks and audits your system from time to time. If you don’t have someone like this at your company you could outsource it to an IT security company who can help you
Keep your systems up to date
This goes hand in hand with auditing your system and finding vulnerabilities. By keeping your system which includes your hardware and software up to date you are keeping your safer and more protected against attackers.
Install protection
Even the safest and most security-conscious startups can get attacked or infected, therefore you should make sure that all of your devices are secured with firewalls, virus protection and malware protection.
There are many paid and free options out there so there is no excuse for not using protection on your devices.
Invest in cybersecurity insurance
With data breaches costing upwards of $3m on average having cybersecurity insurance can mitigate the costs of a hack and help your business recover, however with that said you should do your very best to secure your system because cyber insurance won’t cover everything.
On average 9% of UK businesses and 15% of American businesses have this type of insurance which is worrying.
Conclusion
With cyber-attacks on the rise, it’s very important to secure your startup because unlike established businesses your budget is usually very low and suffering from an attack can put you out of business. Even established businesses struggle with recovering from attacks with over 80% of businesses going out of business within 6 months of a cyber attack.
With the tips above you should now have a better idea of how you can secure your startup against cyber attacks.