Keeping Your Business Data Secure

Finnegan Pierson

Many business people today can agree that if it wasn't for the technology we have available today, operating a business would be a lot more challenging for them. Online devices have made managing businesses as easy as touching a button, allowing things to get done faster and more efficient. But like with anything in this world, technology is not 100% perfect, and it definitely has some downsides to it. One of the biggest disadvantages of using online devices for business is information being stolen. With the convenience of using online technology, there are a lot of people that use it to store their private information as well as there credit card details.

In order to do business online, it does require you to give some kind of personal information without any way around it, especially financial information to receive payments. But this is where problems can arise since many scammers and thieves are aware that there are thousands of business people that need to make purchases online and receive payments as well. Cybercriminals find that stealing money or people’s personal information online is easier and more clever. Online researchers like to call this particular act “cybercrime”, and according to due.com, more than $1 trillion between 2017 and 2021 will be spent to prevent it. Here is how small business owners can protect themselves from cybercrime:

Cyber Thieves Go After Small and Big Businesses Websites

To be honest, cyber thieves will try to steal whatever business data they can get there hands on. But most importantly, they will try to go after financial information specifically. They can also go after data transformation which is normally integrated and stored by businesses and corporations and normally holds a lot of valuable information. This data can be from the small business owner’s website when customers want to purchase something and give there credit card details. On a website, all of the business owner’s financial information is connected to there customer’s banking information in order to receive payments. Cybercriminals know this, which is why if the companies website is not secure enough, it can potentially expose all of the website’s customer’s credit card details. Not only can this open the door for thieves to have access to the customer’s money, but if customers realize their credit card was hacked through your website, it will make them skeptical of being a customer of yours ever again.

As a business person, it’s not only a companies job to sell and serve its customers but also to protect them. Hackers are usually familiar with software that has been in use for more than 6 months plus. It takes weeks and even months to study the software and figure out how to hack it. So if you are wanting to know the best way duck and dodge scammers, start with updating your software at least every three or four months. To know more details on protecting your small business website from being hacked, go to 5 Simple Tips to Secure Your Website from Hackers.

Email Security For Your Business

When doing business, many small business owners do not pay much attention to the importance of protecting their emails and their customer’s emails. Although emails do not seem like they are a useful target for scammers and hackers to go after, it is still a potential gateway for stealing financial information.

Cybercriminals also want people’s emails because it can give access to the user’s online login details of stores they purchase from and could potentially reveal other private information of theirs. And of course, many of us can easily forget our login details of certain websites we have accounts with, and in order to recover it, we get an email to reset our passwords.

With that being said, access to you and your client’s emails can lead to credit card financial details if they can get access to your login information on other websites. So protecting you and your customer’s emails is vital in doing business as well as it is protecting your business website. To know more about ways to protect against email hacking, go to blog.avast.com.