As a small business owner, you may have watched from a distance as organizations like Target, Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase and others have suffered staggering losses from data breaches that affected millions of consumers. Some breaches were from malware, as in the case of Home Depot and Target, or from hackers intently breaking into company servers, like what happened to JP Morgan Chase in July 2014. These data breaches resulted in severely compromised customer loyalty and brand trust, not to mention the monetary losses, and are globally known.
While it is true that larger companies are more prone to attacks by cyber criminals, small businesses are not immune to this threat. Never assume that your business is too small to be of interest to a hacker—any opportunity to sabotage a business for financial gain is relevant to a hacker, no matter the size of the company. If your business stores any sensitive information, which could include customer data as well as that critical company data that your business needs in order to operate, then you need to be prioritizing data protection and security.
The cost of inaction could be debilitating for your business: The 2015 Ponemon Institute study of companies and the cost of security breaches found that in 2016, the cost of one isolated security breach for a company had increased by 23 percent from two years prior. The average cost spent by a company following an incident? $3.7 million. Is your small business equipped to bounce back from such a financial hit?
The best way to avoid answering this question is to act now to prevent an attack from incapacitating your business. Start by taking these steps:
- Identify data access and security for your company. Who has access to what data? Is any data restricted? Ensure your company data access is controlled.
- Protect your sensitive data. Business-critical information must be protected from phishing and malware threats. These threats usually are attempts to breach your corporate network and user endpoints and can be prevented with a comprehensive data security platform.
- Train your employees. Your employees should be trained on data security and have enough awareness to recognize unfamiliar activity or a potential threat.
CHI Corporation can help you identify the right data security solution to protect the unique needs of your small business. Call today to speak with a qualified representative to learn more about the suite of data access, protection, and security products available.
