How familiar are you with Cybersecurity?
Now more than ever, it is a concept that every business owner – and even every individual – should not only be aware of but also implement in their daily lives. As the name shows, cybersecurity is a key strategy to protect your digital business.
Understand what is behind the importance of cybersecurity and how you can improve it in your company.
But first, let’s start with a definition of cybersecurity.
What is Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting online systems from cyberattacks. That includes protecting both software and hardware, data, and digital assets.
Cybersecurity measures are indispensable to any business in this day and age.
Living in the Digital Age
Businesses are increasingly adopting upcoming technologies. The number of companies using the Internet of Things, which refers to the possibility of interconnecting almost any device and system, has tripled. A Flexera report shows that about 94% of businesses use cloud services. And mobile usage is also at the centre of many businesses’ operations.
Worldwide events such as the COVID pandemic have also contributed to the employment of new technological tools and realities, such as remote working. A Global Workplace Analytics report found that remote working increased by 44% over the last five years.
The digital age has gifted businesses with increased efficiency, improved communication, simpler data processes, better customer relations, and expanded global reach.
However, it has also brought a new type of threat: cybercrime.
Types of Cybercrime
Cybercrime is a growing concern for companies. As businesses integrate these new digital tools and embrace expanding areas of technology, they become targets of malicious actors.
Here are some of the types of cybercrimes that have been growing increasingly.
Phishing attacks: when an attacker sends seemingly unharmful but fraudulent emails or messages to trick users into giving away sensitive information.
Ransomware: a type of malware that encrypts files or a system, making them inaccessible, and demands payment to restore access.
Password Attack: when an attacker tries to crack weak passwords and gain network access.
Data Breach: an attacker acquires unauthorised access to sensitive data.
Business Email Compromise: when an attacker breaks into an employee’s email account and impersonates the employee to perform fraudulent transactions or steal sensitive data.
SQL Injection Attack: when an attacker inserts malicious code onto an SQL-using server, allowing an attacker to access and alter data.
The Importance of Cybersecurity
Cybercrime is expected to grow even more. The impact of cybercrime globally is estimated to reach over £8 trillion (about $10 trillion or 9 trillion euros) annually.
Cybersecurity is a preventive tool that helps you keep your company secure. Cybersecurity experts employ a series of technologies and practices that protect your assets, data, and privacy.
Investing in cybersecurity can save you from significant financial losses by avoiding thefts, reducing business disruption, and dodging regulatory fines.
Additionally – and maybe even more importantly – it can help preserve your business’s good name. When you store sensitive customer information, data breaches are especially dramatic, affecting your business image and client trust deeply, and sometimes irreversibly. So besides saving you money, good cybersecurity measures help you keep a good reputation and maintain customer trust.
But keep in mind that cyber attackers are extremely adaptable. They keep up with tendencies and are always reinventing their strategies to break into systems. For that reason, cybersecurity is a constantly evolving field and requires regular tests and updates to your system to ensure optimal security.
How to Improve Your Cybersecurity
Perform Penetration Testing
Have cybersecurity experts test and exploit vulnerabilities in your entire system, including tools such as plugins. The more you test, the better prepared you are to block attackers from breaking into your software.
Educate Employees
Train your employees to identify unusual activity and signs of security breaches. Also, ensure every employee has at least basic knowledge of cybersecurity.
Use Customer Software
Using customer software significantly improves your cybersecurity because you can develop it according to your business needs and requirements, and you can be the only organisation accessing it.
It is preferable to develop your software in-house, but if you lack developers with the necessary expertise, you can hire a custom software development company to do it. Just be sure to implement extra security measures.
Use VPNs
VPNs can help protect your system when employees work remotely or access company systems using public Wi-Fi services.
Conclusion
Living in the digital age makes our lives easier, but it comes at a price: we become more exposed to a new type of crime: cybercrime.
Cybercrime has been on the rise for years. For that reason, you must improve your cybersecurity by, for example, performing several regular tests on your systems, educating employees on the topic, using VPNs, and investing in tailor-made software.
