Every business needs to protect itself from risk as is everywhere. As an entrepreneur it’s presumed that you’re comfortable with an element of risk, however, one area you don’t want to risk is the security of your business.
Today, one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face is cyber security, which is why this article seeks to address a number of key areas in which you might want to consider taking precautions.
- BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GIVE KEYS TO
The first consideration is that you want to be careful who you give the keys to. Think of your house, there’s no way you would let someone have keys to your property or look after your child without first undertaking pre employment background checks, as until this point you simply don’t know who they are or how trustworthy they are.
In today’s freelancer economy, there’s a good chance you will have a number of freelancers working for you, each of which will require access to certain files and sensitive information. The thing to remember, particularly when dealing with freelancers that live abroad, is there is very little in the way of protection against a security breach if they have access to sensitive data; the trick, therefore, is to limit what access freelancers and virtual assistants have to documents.
- HAVE A BACK UP
Security isn’t just about keeping people out, it’s keeping your data secure from corruption or loss. When you think about insurance, most policies don’t merely cover theft – they cover loss and damage too, because they understand this is just as troublesome as theft.
It’s surprisingly easy to corrupt or lose sensitive data which is why it’s so important to backup your data to the cloud.
If you’ve ever been in the position where you’ve lost important data due to hardware failure, accidental damage, or theft… then you’ll have most likely learned the hard way the value of backing up your data to the cloud.
If we compare this to an offline business, you wouldn’t keep just one copy of essential documents, you would have a number of copies, some of which would be kept in secure storage. The trick is to keep a copy of all your work, and in particular crucial documents, in the cloud, to give you the peace of mind that all your precious data will still be there should the worst happen.
- HAVE SURVEILLANCE IN PLACE
Nobody likes the thought of their home or business being burgled, which is why many stores have security cameras in place. You need the same for an online business. Make sure that you have adequate protection against hackers that try to violate your online business premises.
- COLLECT CASH SECURELY
Just like how a high street store has a secure till and a safe, rather than having money laid out on the table, you need a secure way of taking payment. PayPal and Stripe have both stood the test of time as reliable payment systems.
