Let’s be honest – cyber security probably isn’t what you want to spend your time on. You’ve got customers to serve, staff to manage, and emails piling up faster than you can blink. But here’s the harsh reality – cyber criminals are targeting firms just like yours. And if you don’t do something about it, it could risk everything that you’ve built.
A recent study by BT and Be the Business is a stark warning of the scale of the problem: two in five small businesses – around two million of us – haven’t arranged cyber security training for their staff. This rockets to two out of three for midsize firms – which helps explain why nearly half of small businesses were hit by a cyber attack in the last 12 months.
Recent high-profile attacks on Marks & Spencer and the Co-Op show the level of disruption that hackers can have on a business – interruptions to online orders, bare shelves in-store, compromised customer data, and big hits to profits. And these are huge businesses with deep pockets and dedicated IT teams.
Now imagine the damage something like that could do to your business.
In fact, the average cost for small businesses dealing with the fallout of a cyber attack is £7,960 and it takes months to recover from. That’s not just an annoying inconvenience – it’s rent, wages, stock and possibly the future of your business.
Most attacks aren’t especially sophisticated either, with phishing – scam messages that trick people into giving access to their firm’s IT systems and data – being the biggest threat. Nearly nine out of ten businesses were hit by phishing scams last year, while ransomware – where criminals lock your files and demand a payout – has doubled in the past year, now hitting 1 in 100 businesses.
But here’s the silver lining – businesses that take cyber security seriously aren’t just safer, they actually grow faster – cyber-savvy firms have a 20% higher growth rate on average.
So, what can you do about it?
There’s a long list of things you can do to protect yourself against the criminals that want to hack into your systems and disrupt your business, but the following lists the essential things you need to do today
Step 1: Train your people… immediately
Most cyber attacks start with simple human error. Train your team to spot dodgy emails, phishing attempts, and suspicious links, and you’ll have shut down most risks.
Step 2: Stop ignoring updates
Yes, they’re annoying. Yes, they take ages. But updates fix the security holes that hackers are looking for. Update everything—computers, mobiles, apps, the lot.
Step 3: Sort out passwords
Easy-to-guess passwords give hackers an open door to your systems, so use strong passwords, get a password manager to store unique passwords and enable multi-factor authentication.
Step 4: Back up… regularly.
If ransomware hits, your backups could save your business, so automate backups and test them so you know they’ll work when you need them.
Step 5: Put cyber insurance in place
It might be an unforeseen cost, but cyber insurance is often the difference between a business getting back on its feet after a cyber attack, and not.
Cyber attacks are getting more common, more damaging, and more expensive. And it’s not only big business that criminals are going after – small businesses are being targeted as well. But with a few simple steps you can make your business safer – and even help it grow faster.
So don’t let it be something you put off anymore.
