Five ways small businesses can reduce the risk of cyber crime

Despite the perception in media stories, it’s not just large global companies that are at risk of a cyber security breach. In fact, the government’s latest Cyber Security Breaches survey revealed that 31% of micro/small businesses identified one breach or attack in the last 12 months.

While staying secure might feel a daunting challenge, it no longer needs to be. The NCSC’s Small Business Guide can provide you with advice that is simple and low cost, allowing you to protect yourselves against the majority of cyber threats.

The Small Business Guide includes five #LifeUpdates your business can do quickly and easily to reduce the risk of a successful cyber attack:

• Always install the latest software and app updates on all of your devices as soon as possible. New research from Cyber Aware and Anglia Ruskin University has revealed that 47% of UK adults surveyed delay installing updates, so it’s likely that a few people from across your business are procrastinating this task too. No matter what devices your organisation uses, it’s important they are kept up to date with the latest software and app updates at all times. They contain vital security which helps protect your device – and confidential data - from viruses and would-be hackers.

• Use a strong and separate password for your email account. An employee’s email account contains a wealth of information. This may include client bank details, supplier addresses, confidential internal emails and much more. If this data is stolen by hackers, your business is at risk of losing more than just its reputation. To avoid this, it is important that your employees don’t have the same password for all their online accounts. Encourage them to use a strong and separate password for their most important accounts, so if a hacker gets into one account, they won’t be able to access them all. It’s usually easy to set up additional protection through “two factor authentication” (2FA) for the most important websites like banking and email.

• Secure your businesses tablets and smartphones with a screenlock. There are often a wide range of devices in a workplace, each one containing data that would be valuable to a cyber criminal. It is easy to add an extra layer of security simply by turning on the screenlock function. This means only approved members of staff will be able to access confidential information.

• Always back up your business’s most important data. Businesses are responsible for both their own data, as well as the data of their customers, suppliers and employees. To protect it, back up this important data to an external hard drive or cloud-based storage system. Otherwise, if your business devices were to become infected by a virus, or malicious software, a hacker could damage or delete this information, risking your business’s reputation.

• Help train your employees never to click on suspicious links or attachments. Your employees will receive hundreds of emails each day. With this volume of messages it is important to remain suspicious of emails or attachments that don’t look or feel right. Remind employees that even if a suspicious email comes from a company or person they know, it is best to contact them by other means to check they are genuine. An email address can be faked and attachments may contain viruses or malware.

Following these cyber security tips can help your business stay secure online. #LifeUpdates is a simple way to ensure you protect yourself from cyber criminals. It’s so important to install those latest updates to software and apps as soon as you can. Updates are designed to fix weaknesses in software and apps, helping secure your device against attacks. All you have to do is go to ‘settings’ to check that auto-updates are turned on - and turn them on if they’re not!

For more cyber security guidance download the NCSC’s Small Business Guide. Or if you’re a CBI member, learn from others’ experience and find out what questions you need to ask on the road to cyber security.