What Are The Key Threats To Your Business In 2019?
Running a business is – well – busy, right? You’ve got a lot of plates and priorities to juggle, which means business owners often overlook crucial ways in which they can prevent downtime, financial loss and reputational damage.
Data loss = Downtime.
Yep, we’re talking about data breaches and data loss and the risk they pose to the everyday running of your business. You rely on having access to your files and applications. Without them, how long would you be able to continue to operate?
So, why is it we often forget to take important measures to protect our data? We think it’s due to a ‘That will never happen to me’ attitude – an attitude that you may regret when disaster strikes.
Today, we’re here to remind you about some of the key threats to your office, as well as offer some solutions that you can implement almost straight away.
Key threats to your data and applications.
Technology fails you.
Whilst our laptops, computers and mobile devices are the lifeblood of any modern business, things can go wrong; hardware can fail, files can be corrupted and systems can crash.
When this happens, critical files and apps that were not backed up in the cloud or an external server can be deleted and lost forever.
“It was an accident, I swear.”
After all, we’re only human. Mistakes happen and files can get deleted or overwritten. Even if the culprit didn’t mean any harm, this doesn’t get away from the fact that you’ll now have to re-write that important document or re-input the correct data into that spreadsheet.
And, this means more time and money spent.
Unpredictable circumstances.
Some things you simply can’t prepare for. For example, natural disasters, fires and leaks that destroy your office and technology.
Whilst it would be very detrimental for you to lose your office furniture and expensive coffee machine. Some comfort would be found if you had only backed up your digital office onto an external server of the cloud, right?
You could invest in new hardware and keep your business afloat.
Someone’s out to make money from you.
Viruses, malware and ransomware are all well-known threats to your network. But, have you considered former employees?
Ex-members of staff could accidentally – or intentionally – share private passwords, which could allow unauthorised individuals access to your businesses applications.
On the one hand, this could lead to a ransom situation. But, on the other hand, the leaking of customer data would almost certainly destroy your company reputation.
How can I prevent data loss?
Whilst all of these scenarios may seem far-fetched, you must always prepare for the worst when it comes to protecting the most precious aspects of your business.
Here are some resources on how you can take important steps towards reducing your chance of a data breach or data loss.
- Backup your data and check your backups regularly.
- Design a disaster recovery plan.
- Backup your files in the cloud.
- Sync your files to a cloud service like OneDrive, DropBox or Google Drive.
- Train your staff on the importance of security.
- Change passwords and security keys frequently, especially when a member of staff moves on.
- Invest in the right antivirus and malware protection.