What are your Florida Business’s chances of being hacked, or targeted by a cyberattack? I hate to tell you this, but they’re probably a lot higher than you might think. Improving cybersecurity basics is one of the best safeguards, but remains something businesses aren’t taking advantage of. A hacker strikes every 39 seconds, and 80% of businesses last year were the victim of some sort of cyberattack – whether it be malware, phishing, or any of the long list.

Despite these daunting numbers, almost 90 percent of small business owners believing they’re safe, about half of all small businesses will suffer from a catastrophic cyber-attack.

Are you at risk of being part of the unfortunate businesses?

Fortunately, there is a lot that you can do to help reduce the chances that a cyberattack will successfully target you. This is a good thing – not only will a hack damage your relationships with everyone involved with your Tampa business, half of the businesses that are attacked close up shop within six months. I’ve seen it happen far too often to businesses that just weren’t prepared.

We’ve compiled a few tips to help you improve your cybersecurity basics, reducing your risk of a successful attack:

• Updates – We know how annoying those software, application, and any other update notifications can be, but it is important to remember that the most of them are meant to improve security. Therefore, you should prioritize these updates whenever possible. It may prevent an attack from victimizing you. We can help you update your IT systems if you need.
• Involve Your Employees – The unfortunate reality is that your employees can be the biggest vulnerability your business has. Properly educating them in cybersecurity best practices and holding them to these standards will help reduce the chances that one of them will inadvertently let in a threat. Training them in various security best practices and explaining why certain requirements are in place will help to motivate them to participate for the company’s benefit. We offer a variety of cybersecurity training programs. Check out our page on the topic to learn more.
• Limit Access – On the other side of the coin, the less an employee has access to, the fewer chances there are that one of them leaves you vulnerable in some way. The same can be said of your clients – regardless of how much someone is trusted, you shouldn’t allow them privileges beyond their role. Whether its role-specific resources, data, or other information, employees should be given individual login credentials to make assigning privileges easier. Your business Wi-Fi should also remain separate from the Wi-Fi made available to clients.
• Backup, Backup, and Backup Again – If, despite all your preparations, you are still infiltrated, you want to have an extra copy of all your important data somewhere else, safe and sound. This backup copy would ideally be stored offsite and securely encrypted.

As it happens, Symmetric IT Group can help you out with all these measures, and many more. Any sort of IT concern or issue you are having, we can fix.

If you want some added help with these cybersecurity basics, or want to do more to protect your operations, you can always lean on us. Symmetric IT Group is a top Tampa IT Support company and is committed to ensuring that your technology allows your business to operate better, improved security being a major part of that goal. Reach out by calling us at (813) 749-0895 check out our information security page.