In times like these, protecting your business is as essential as ever. That means securing your systems, finances, and the well-being of your employees. It isn’t enough to just use security cameras at your physical location or relying on paperwork and lawyers. Too often, cyberattacks are the reason companies lose business and eventually get shut down. Here are seven tips on how to protect your business and future-proof your assets.
1. Educate Yourself and Your Employees About Cybersecurity
First and foremost, you need to spend the time educating yourself and the people you work with about the current state of cybersecurity.
Every October, National Cyber Security Awareness Month is held to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. An online toolkit can be found online that offers tips and resources you can share with your team to get you started.
In short, the three most common forms of a cyberattack are malware, phishing, and a man-in-the-middle attack.
Malware is any malicious software that can take the form of a virus, Trojan horse, or worm. It can do anything to your systems, from stealing information to shutting down your entire operation.
Phishing involves fraudulent emails or text messages aimed at stealing sensitive information.
Man-in-the-middle attacks take advantage of wi-fi access points to intercept vital information.
2. Set up a VPN
When most people hear the term VPN, they think of streaming television shows that are blocked in their country. However, setting up a VPN can be essential for keeping your information safe.
A VPN, or virtual private network, creates an encrypted tunnel that hides your internet traffic from outside sources. It’s by far the best way to secure data in transit, such as between your laptop and your smartphone.
Big corporations typically use their own VPN services. For smaller businesses, there are a number of different VPN options out there at different price points.
3. Use Encryption and Wi-Fi Protected Access
When you encrypt information, you scramble the data so that it can only be accessed with the proper key.
For example, if your laptop with all of your clients’ information was stolen, a hacker wouldn’t need to know your password to access those files. They can boot it from the USB drive and access it like an external hard drive.
By encrypting your information, you make your information useless to anyone who doesn’t have the key to read it. You can encrypt specific files on your computer or go as far as encrypting an entire disk.
4. Protect Your Website and Data
If you run your business through a website, protecting yourself means protecting your website.
One such way to do this is through the basics. A privacy policy will collect information while letting visitors know what exactly you’re collecting and why.
A disclaimer will help with that by telling people who you are and what you do. Conditions of use tell people how they are allowed to use your website, which is useful if you have a forum attached to it.
In addition, having anti-virus and anti-malware on your systems will protect not only your clients but the people who visit your website. The last thing you need is a virus jumping off your computer and infecting others through your website.
5. Use Contracts to Protect Your Business
It should come as no surprise, but one of the best ways to protect your business and its reputation is to use contracts. Privacy policies serve as a sort of contract on the internet for data collection, but physical contracts are just as important.
Every time you make an agreement on work to be done, you should get a contract written up and share it with the client. Even when you’re dealing with other companies, you need contracts so extra expenses aren’t tacked on or they don’t renege on the deal.
Cover all your bases, even if it includes situations that you don’t expect to happen. Trust, but verify.
6. Train Your Employees
Protecting your employees is just as important as protecting the clients who fund your business. Especially when your business involves heavy equipment, taking the time to train your employees should be given its due diligence.
To begin with, the employer should be well aware of what the hazards are in their workplace.
With that knowledge, you will then need to set aside several hours of training time for your employees to educate them on the risks they may face. Routine training will help drill safety habits into their work, and save you money on lawsuits or lost labor.
7. Provide Workers Comp
On the off-chance that one of your employees does get injured on the job, workers’ compensation policies will save you money and the very life of your company.
In such a time as a pandemic, workers comp provides financial assistance for not only physical injuries but illnesses. In exchange, your workers give up their right to sue their employers.
Your business wins by avoiding crippling lawsuits, while employees have financial security.
Every state has legal requirements on workers’ comp. Those requirements vary depending on the type of work your company does and its overall size.
For example, in Florida, all construction companies hiring even a single employee must provide coverage. For non-construction, that goes for anything over four employees.
In New York, they have even fewer exceptions regarding requirements for workers’ comp.
Get Workers’ Compensation Today
There are no shortcuts when you want to protect your business, including your clients and the people who work for you. Every little aspect needs to be monitored and protected from malicious attacks.
And when accidents happen on the job, everyone will sleep better knowing that the employee is getting the coverage he or she needs to heal up and get back on the job.
Reach out to us today to get a quote or if you need any information regarding Florida’s workers’ comp!