Small-Business Cybersecurity 101: Important Tips for Entrepreneurs

Photo by rupixen.com on Unsplash

Did you know that in 2020, small businesses made up 28 percent of cybersecurity incidents that happened across the United States? These dangerous incidents have not only increased in frequency over the years, but they are also impacting small businesses more and more. What do you need to know about small-business cybersecurity? How can you protect yourself?

Why is cybersecurity important?

As of 2019, data breaches cost small companies around $200k per incident, and that number continues to rise. The fact of the matter is that small business can’t afford to let “the big one” happen — many companies would have to shutter their windows if an incident were to occur.

The threat landscape for small businesses changes every day. Especially as more companies sent their employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, endpoint security was pushed into stark relief as becoming one of the most important aspects of a company’s security posture. With company laptops being used on personal home networks, and people being connected simply through a screen instead of seeing each other face-to-face, malicious actors took advantage of the situation — nearly 36 billion records were exposed throughout the year.

What can you do?

1. Small business owners should take steps now to protect their systems, instead of waiting until it’s too late. It’s relatively simple to put some precautions in place now, versus paying the price later if your systems are compromised.  Learn how to protect yourself from phishing scams and business email compromise (BEC) hacking attempts. As your business grows and you gain employees, train them to spot scams as well. Essentially, remember that you shouldn’t share sensitive information via email, check the grammar in any “phishy” messages you get, and check the domain of the sender by hovering over the ‘from’ box in the email.

2. Have a disaster recovery (DR) plan. If you are hit with a cyber-attack, you need to make sure you have a backup of your data, for one. The right DR plan will be easy to implement, flexible, affordable, and secure. Working with a managed services provider would offer you the expertise you need so you can breathe easily. Whatever solution you choose, Commvault recommends having the ability to view and manage your data through a single interface — and make sure you frequently test your plan. (Because any good plan should be tested and retested often to gauge its effectiveness.)

3. Update your systems. Updates to operating systems and regular patching often carry security updates that correct flaws that have been discovered in your OS. Therefore, it’s critical to make sure your systems are up-to-date with the latest software.

4. Secure your company Wi-Fi network. Set your router so that it is password protected and encrypted and encourage your employees to do the same.

5. Use two-factor authentication to access company machines. Enabling two-factor authentication is one of the most important things any company or individual can do to combat the spread of hackers. By requiring a second factor to log in to resources (in addition to a password, you may be asked to generate a random code), it strengthens security and keeps malicious actors out of your systems.

Protect your site and keep customers safe.

With a little bit of attention, a little bit of elbow grease, and a lot of precaution, your small business can be protected against the threat of a cyber-attack. For more information about running your small business and making sure you’re getting the most out of your website security, protect your site, and keep customers safe, visit HomeOfficeXpert.com.

Related Content: Using Free Email Accounts for Business (Podcast: Morning Joe with Gibrón) 

Make a brand difference.™

Build brand recognition with your email account

The rationale behind this post is so simple yet strong in the application – understand how the current email provider you are using can make or break your brand recognition. 

You may be using MSN HotMail (relaunched Hotmail as Outlook), Yahoo, Gmail, MailChimp, and the list goes on.  One thing you and my clients want is the ability to tell everybody about your business and what you can do now.  For example, let's say your name is Marc Zookerburg and you have a business by the name Fadebook your email address should be something like marc@fadebook.com. 

Configure your email signature so your logo is present in each email you send.  This will help recipients recognize your brand and associate the topics you discuss with your small business.

When you send out a mass email to all of your friends, telling them about a new product. Sure, your friends (warm market) will recognize your name and email if you've communicated with them recently.  That's great, and to be expected.  You certainly want your friends to open your email and learn all about your product and hopefully make a purchase.  But, a time will come when you need more customers outside of your "warm market" that lead to brand advocates because they love your product and all that it stands for, so they tell everyone they know.

Align your domain name with your business email account

People you don't know about your brand, won't recognize or consider a Yahoo email address as an established brand for what you intend to offer.  So what should you do?  Make sure your web developer aligns your domain name and business email account.  Doing this will allow you to send your individual or mass email to prospects and friends using "marc@fadebook.com" instead of "marc@yahoo.com."  So you say, yeah that's close to a no-brainer.  I kinda already know that already.  The problem is keeping your commitment to your brand and marketing by making sure that "marc@fadebook.com" is the primary email you use. It can be difficult to make a major change from your free email address to your business. And for this, there is also a fix. Just make sure your website developer configures your new email to automatically forward your old email to your old email address. 

How is brand recognition increased with email? 

Each and every time someone receives an email from you they will see your company name (brand) time after time, again and again, one after the other!  Like little children with toys, we see something and we put it away in our minds.  A simple thing. Not the rent or the mortgage. It's paramount that you capitalize on the opportunity and reinforce brand recognition. When people think of your brand and grab the keyboard or mobile phone to find your website, your email address is what they will recall... "What's that email address... I want to tell my friend about that fadebook.com website to see if they like it?"  You wouldn't drive a Volkswagen and buy a Ford keychain holder.  If you are sporting the wrong brand, don't worry change about attracting new customers.

This is Gibron T. Williams, Head Honcho at Oevae Marketing Consultants and these are my opinions.

Related Content: Using Free Email Accounts for Business (Podcast: Morning Joe with Gibrón) 

Make a brand difference.™

Hosting, Email, and Domain Names Unite

Everybody likes convenience. No brainer, right? Well, this is something you’ve got to remember when managing your business on the Internet. 

Like mobile phone carriers that offer you Text Messaging Plans, Data Packages, and more. The company you choose to host your company website should also be the company that provides your domain name and email accounts. I haven't run into anyone yet who would use T-Mobile as their cell phone carrier and then buy a Text Messaging plan from Apple. So why would you register your domain at GoDaddy and host your website at Wix? Internet service providers, unlike cell phone carriers, actually allow you to mix Internet domain registrars and web hosting with different providers. What you don’t know is that there are 3 very good reasons why you should start thinking ahead about how you manage your business online. 

Why bundle your Internet domain registrar and web hosting

I know the answer to this based on 20+ years of experience in helping clients do everything from creating, registering, and retrieving domain names to hosting and managing multiple email accounts. My findings will give you good reasons to pick one safe, reliable, and affordable Internet domain registrar and web hosting provider that helps you manage your online presence more efficiently –  solid reasoning to integrate Hosting, Email, and Domain, which will enable you to make webmaster-like decisions when managing your business online. It's not only smart for your business, it could help you from tainting your brand experience.

Let’s start with passwords 

These little jumbled letters, capital letters, lower-case letters, special symbols, limited characters, and sticky phrases are sometimes remembered and most often forgotten.  Passwords can be a stinker to keep up with, to say the least. Don’t be in a hurry or have a typo when entering your password, this will most likely get you locked out of your account for a few hours, or have you dialing technical support and listening to elevator music and artificial intelligence for several of your valuable minutes. So what do you do? Create fewer passwords. Simply put: fewer passwords equal fewer headaches.

The same goes for managing your Internet domain registrar and web hosting. With multiple Internet solution providers, you can bet your last dollar that each will have its own uniquely safe password scheme that you must use to create. This means having your hosting, email, email marketing, and domain name divided among different Internet domain registrars and web hosting providers (GoDaddy, Wix, Squarespace, etc.). You will also have an equal number of passwords to retain. That’s bad news. So remember to use one Internet service provider that with everything you need. 

Now let’s talk about Email

You should be using business email to do just that – business. And when it comes to keeping commitments and communicating with your prospects and clients, you better make sure your email and website are properly aligned. If you don’t already know, email is one of the easiest ways for outsiders to interfere with your business operations. So you might choose to separate your hosting provider and email because you think one company offers more safety than the next which might be true? If and when you have a technical problem with your email, hosting, or domain; having the same technical support for all three keeps you from dialing three different numbers searching for the answer that fixes your problem.

If you have hosting at provider A and email accounts at provider B, each will have limited ability to track activity from beginning to end. So you are left with trying to balance who’s right and who’s almost right with who doesn’t have a clue which is normally you at The End. The thing here to remember is the benefits of learning the habits, abilities, and response time of one Internet Services provider Technical Support Team rather than spending half your day stitching together the suggestions of multiple representatives. 

Last but not least is domain names 

Your URL aka Domain Name, aka Website Address is the single most important part of your business online that keeps you in the know. No domain name. No online business. If you fail to keep up with renewal dates, some other business becomes the new you. 

When you’ve registered your domain name with a different company than your hosting provider or email provider, you have more email notifications to monitor. You have or will most likely acquire your domain name, hosting account, and email provider on different dates. Rest assured that your renewal notifications will respect these dates. This means you could miss an important email and kiss a great domain name goodbye if you miss the renewal date. Limiting your domain registrar and web hosting to one provider means you get one consistent billing system, using one credit card with a company you trust. 

My clients have come from all walks of life and made the best decisions based on the information provided to them during their startup phase. Oevae.com integrates your domain registration, web hosting, and email, making it easier for them to manage their online business.

Make a brand difference.™