Entrepreneurs, Say Goodbye To Hackers And Hello To Peace Of Mind

say goodbye to hackers and hello to peace of mind

As an entrepreneur, you’re busy focusing on the things that will help take your business to the next level. You want to be spending your time working on your marketing campaigns, looking for ways to move your business forward, and help boost your revenue. You don’t want to be spending your time worrying about the vague threat of being hacked. But like it or not, it’s something you have to be thinking about. Below we outline 5 ways to help keep your confidential data safe.

Thinking Like A Hacker

Most business owners have no idea how vulnerable their data is because they never take the time to check. Before doing anything, you should conduct a thorough review of your data practices and security vulnerabilities. Hire a security expert to test your systems; they will know much more than you do and may spot a weakness that you have overlooked. You’re not a hacker (we hope!), but to beat them you will have to think like one for a few hours!

Your First Line Of Defense

Your staff have more control over your security than you or they might think. They’re focused on their job and probably don’t even think about, but if they follow the right security procedures, it’ll make it much easier for your company to stay safe. Set some time aside so that all employees can attend a security training session. Just knowing a few of the basic rules (such as password locking computers) can be the difference between between staying safe and being compromised.

Destroy What Is No Longer Needed

You have in your possession more sensitive data than you realize, and if you’re not taking the steps necessary to ensure it cannot be accessed then you run the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. For your hard drives, you should be ensuring that they’re wiped clean with an NSA degausser – this will make them unreadable even if they’re picked up by a hacker. Similarly, you should make it company policy to shred all documents once they’re no longer needed.

Updating Your Software

You should be updating your company’s software as a way to boost your business productivity anyway, but it’ll have also help boost your security too. Older software is no longer updated and can have security flaws that make them highly vulnerable. Aside from the software you use for your business activities, it’s imperative that you have the right anti-virus software installed on all your work computers. It’s easy to install but is so effective!

Securing Your Hardware

Finally, you’ll be making it much more difficult for hackers if they’re not able to access your computers and other hardware. If they can steal a laptop and get in, it’ll be too late – there’ll have all the information they need. Make sure all your computers are password protected (and make it a strong password…) and are properly secured each night when everyone has gone home. Also making sure that they don’t “stay awake” for too long when not in use will also help protect you.

With over 9 years of search marketing experience, Sandra is cross skilled between PPC and SEO. Her experience in search spans across different verticals including Technology, Retail, Travel & Automotive.