When you decide to open a small business, whether it is in your local area or online, you have to deal with various responsibilities which ensure that your business will run smoothly. There are lots of risks that you need to deal with during the time of running your small business. If you run your small office in your local area, the risks might include theft, robbery, intruders, and so on. But, when you run your small business online, the risks are even greater, since they can come from anywhere. For instance, hacker attacks can come from a place miles and miles away from your business location, which can give privacy and security risks for your business.
Lots of hackers are using the loopholes or vulnerabilities of your system to steal your private and important data. Unless you know about these loopholes, you can’t protect your business system from their attacks. Here are the 5 common privacy and security loopholes in small businesses that you need to be aware of:
1. Unsecured Or Non-encrypted Network
The first thing that you have to take a look is the network that you use for your small business. If it is unsecured or non-encrypted, then you are in for trouble. A small business that still uses a non-encrypted network is asking for trouble because it is simply not safe for you to use this type of network. Anyone can easily monitor what you are doing with your network, and all data transmissions are not secure at all. If you think that you are storing your important data in a safe place, then you are wrong. As long as your network is non-encrypted, hackers can penetrate your network easily and steal your important data, as well as deploy various malware onto your system.
2. Bad Standard Security And Privacy Procedure For Employees
If you want to ensure that your business will provide the best protection system for your customers, you need to teach your employees about the standard security and privacy procedure for your business. A bad standard of security and privacy can lead you to leaking the important information to the third parties. For instance, if you allow your employees to access your business network using a non-secured connection, then hackers can piggyback on your employee’s connection to gain access to your business system, which will be bad for you.
3. Non-secured Remote Access Network
The way your staff connect to your business system and do their business activities remotely can also become a potential loophole for hackers to penetrate. Allowing your employees to access the office computers from other places, such as from their home or from another country means that you need to ensure that they are controlling the office computers in a completely private way. You need to make sure that they are not being monitored by anyone, and moreover, they have to connect to your office computers using a secure private connection system. Using VPN is the only safe way to allow your employees to connect to your office computers without being monitored or tracked by any third parties.
4. Cloud Applications With Weak Security And Privacy Protocols
The cloud applications that you choose to use will also affect the overall security and privacy of your business. If you are using the cloud-based applications that have weak security and privacy protocols, it means that you are giving the chance for hackers to penetrate these apps and steal your private business data. You can’t allow this to happen. For instance, if the cloud storage that you choose has a weak security and privacy protocol, it’s only a matter of time before hackers can steal the data from your cloud storage for their own benefits.
5. Old Operating System That Is No Longer Supported
Be aware that using an old operating system as your daily driver for your business will put your entire business at risk. If for the sake of cutting your budget, you are installing an old operating system for your business computers, then it is the same as asking the robber to rob your home without any effort. Yet, there are still many businesses that use unsupported operating system that has not been patched or updated for more than 5 years. Are you willing to risk your own business security and privacy for the sake of cutting on your budget? It’s a wise decision for you to upgrade your operating system to the latest version and keep updating it with the latest patch.
Those are the 5 common privacy and security loopholes that might risk your small business. The only way for you to prevent hackers from attacking your system is to ensure that these loopholes no longer exist in your small business system. The best policy is to put the security and privacy of your business and your customers as your first priority.