As the EU regulations for personal data online came into force in May 2018, businesses all around the world have been forced to consider the matter of cyber security. For the first time, small and large businesses have asked questions they might have never asked before. Indeed, the data protection act states that there should be organizational structures and technical measures to not only secure the personal data of customers and employees but also provide when relevant each user with the right to access and erase their data.
For small businesses, the question focuses wrongly on the IT budget that is available for the deployment of cyber security strategies. In reality, asking about the IT budget of a company misses the point of the debate. Indeed, businesses are expected to have long adopted the Principle 7 of the Data Protection Act, namely ensuring that measures are taken against unlawful processes of personal data and accidental loss or destruction of the data. The GDPR regulations are an extension of Principle 7. However, many companies have a blind spot when it comes to cyber security in their infrastructure.
Your blind spot is a hacker’s entry point
No payment goes through HTTP
You don’t need to look far to stumble across, here and then, websites that fail to provide a secure gateway for the collection of personal data. For the common user, a secure gateway is synonym with the padlock icon you see on top of your browser. For this stands for, ultimately, is the encryption of data, which guarantees that payment information, personal addresses, and names are not made visible to the public and, hopefully, to hackers. Indeed, with these details, a criminal could easily steal the identity of your customers and commit to expensive purchases without their knowledge. As a 21st century business, you can’t afford to go on without using Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure, or HTTPS for short., which you can buy from your hosting provider.
Your firewall is like a shield: It’s either up or useless
Nowadays, the buzzword firewall has long disappeared from the trendy IT debates. Indeed, while every PC owner knew about their firewall in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most current users seem to have forgotten about the essential function of this security system. Indeed, firewalls act as a protection against malware, stopping them from spreading to the network. They also prevent hackers from infiltrating your system. Why are many firewalls down? Ultimately, as solo businesses multiply, many entrepreneurs choose to deploy a hands-on approach to their IT solution, which can lead to a terrible security crisis. If you can’t hire an in-house IT team, you need to take a look at outsourcing your IT needs with a managed service provider who can maintain your system security. You can’t afford to expose your business data to infiltration risks.
When your network isn’t safe
Hackers have more than one way of attacking your network. Educating your staff against security dangers, such as phishing scams, can protect your company from dramatic network crimes. Indeed, phishing emails might be the oldest trick in the book, but they are still successful.
Hackers don’t take days off in their quest to infiltrate commercial entities. As they keep on learning and developing innovative cyber crime strategies, the role of businesses is to give them no chance of success.