Cybercriminals are not letting businesses breathe: in 2024 alone, Microsoft, Change Healthcare, CDK Global, and more giants were attacked, causing them to lose money and customer trust. But it’s not just big companies that are compromised. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses suffer from cyberattacks just as much, if not more.
While training staff on digital practices and relying on basic security principles are a good start for small businesses, they’re not sufficient when scaling. During business growth, one of the most important yet overlooked aspects is ensuring your cybersecurity measures can protect your company from any potential cyberattacks like data breaches or phishing attacks.
Do you want to scale your business without falling victim to cyberattacks? Then, let’s examine cybersecurity challenges for expanding businesses and simple yet effective solutions to tackle them.
Compliance with Local Regulations
As a company grows, it naturally gathers more data about its customers and resources. There are risks, though, because hackers could use this information badly if they get their hands on it. Details like business information, credit card numbers, and personal IDs are most prized. Without strong security measures, this data becomes vulnerable to breaches that can harm both the company and its clients.
Obtaining a hold of certain legislation, such as GDPR, PIPEDA, and PCI, puts companies in a better position to safeguard their business and customers by enforcing strong cybersecurity practices. So, ensure your security measures cover everything and can meet these standards.
Data Breaches
As a small business, you might store all your business information on-site. However, as your company expands, this approach increases the risk of data breaches. Keeping confidential information filed on-site can lead to it being stolen physically or accidentally deleted due to hardware issues.
Modify your cybersecurity strategy to enhance your business’s safety. For instance, it may include using robust network firewalls, deploying best business VPNs, and monitoring network traffic to detect any abnormal performance.
A relevant approach to increasing the security of business data is to migrate it to the cloud. All cloud service providers are focused on securely hosting client data and thus provide encryption, regular updates, and software patches. Some even provide disaster recovery services. Relying on such cloud services can decrease the chances of jeopardizing factors such as theft and hardware failure.
When selecting a cloud provider, ensure they follow industry-leading security practices, such as encryption and multi-factor authentication, and meet your business’s needs.
Cyberattacks
Cyberattacks like phishing, malware, or ransomware come in different forms but have one thing in common: exploiting your business’s systems or network for malicious purposes.
During phishing, a criminal poses as a trusted organization, colleague, or executive to coax an employee’s information. They might ask for a money transfer or login information or even attach a malware link to the email. Either way, if the attack turns out to be successful, phishing can result in data loss, financial damage, and business disruption.
Ransomware’s goal is to earn money. The attacker locks sensitive information or the entire network, demanding payment to release it. If the ransom is not paid on time, the data is either leaked or destroyed.
Essentially, a cyberattack involves unauthorized access, and passwords are the first line of defense. To protect their networks, businesses must enforce strong, complex, and unique passwords. A tool that can streamline this process is a business password manager. It generates long, secure passwords for each business account and stores them safely on the server. Such measures ensure that your entire team can follow best security practices without the hassle of remembering every password.
Multi-factor authentication is the second wall that secures your business. It adds another verification method to a password. FIDO authentication, a protocol that verifies your identity by a USB key or smartphone, is the standard of multi-factor authentication for most businesses.
Low Operational Efficiency
Cyberattacks can still happen despite strong defenses. If your business is attacked, your workforce will likely need to focus on stopping the attack and fixing any security vulnerabilities. While this is the right response, it can significantly disrupt your business’s workflow.
To minimize such disruptions, consider expanding your cybersecurity team or outsourcing certain security functions. Services like vulnerability scanning and penetration testing can be handled by third-party providers, saving you time and resources.
Also, consider a habit or routine of enabling software to integrate newer patches automatically. Integrating easier changes like this saves mental effort but ensures critical security patches are received when required.
Prepare for the Safer Future
The risks get bigger as your business grows, and even one security breach can have devastating results. Increasing your protection might seem like an overwhelming task, but it’s important to do so to keep your customers and your business safe. By conducting regular check-ups and drills, you can reduce cyber risks while maintaining a secure environment that fosters trust with your customers as your company expands.
