The dream of starting your own small business is, well, as American as apple pie. There are more than 33 million small businesses in the U.S., which account for 99.9% of all businesses. Whether you launched your own business or joined an SMB, you likely enjoy working with a small-but-mighty team to serve your community and marketplace and help your business thrive. But it’s the exact nature of SMBs that also make them a prime target for damaging cybersecurity attacks. SMBs often have fewer resources to devote to cybersecurity measures or lack the expertise needed to implement a robust strategy. Yet, small businesses are three times more likely to be targeted by cybercriminals compared to larger companies.

In this post, we share the key components of an effective cybersecurity strategy for your SMB, including employee training, endpoint security, data protection, incident response, and continuous monitoring. We hope this article helps you understand where to start to better protect your business—and why.

Understanding Your Business's Unique Needs

We can’t over-emphasize the importance of a robust cybersecurity strategy to protect your small business. It’s also important to tailor your security measures to your industry and size and keep in mind the legal or regulatory requirements of your given industry. Whether you develop and maintain your security program in-house or partner with a third party, you should also think about where you expect your business to be in six months, one year, or five years from now. The right cybersecurity strategy should help—not hinder—your growth.

We understand it can be hard to get started, and you’re not alone. Nearly 95% of organizations find the execution of technology and security tasks to be challenging.

One of the most effective first steps is a risk assessment of your SMB. The assessment will look at your existing security measures to unearth security vulnerabilities. Often, the risk assessment will also illuminate persistent productivity and scalability challenges. At N8 Solutions, we offer a free Network Security Assessment and Audit. We organize a discovery session with your team to review your technology environment, assess your network security, review your software and configurations, and provide a customized audit report with recommendations. And it’s all free with no commitment required.  

Key Components of a Cybersecurity Strategy

Are you ready to develop and implement a cybersecurity program at your SMB? Smart move! Here’s five key components to consider to protect your business.

• Employee Training: The FCC shares 10 cybersecurity tips for small businesses, and can you guess what tops the list: training employees in security principles. Remember, no matter your size, the most important part of your business is your people. Your staff can be your greatest defense to thwart cyberattacks; but they can also be your weakest link. Training your staff on basic risks and best practices can help ensure a better defense for your business. With the right training, your staff can actually help you spot and stop potential cyberattacks, like a phishing campaign. For more, see this post on best practices for effective cybersecurity training for your staff.
  

• Endpoint Security: Many SMBs have shifted to hybrid teams. This means that you’re probably dealing with a lot of endpoint devices, including personal laptops, mobile phones, and tablets. The threat of mobile malware continues to rise, and more attackers will target these precarious endpoints to access your SMBs network. One report suggests that nearly half of all connected devices are vulnerable to medium and high severity attacks. To protect your network, protect your endpoints with up-to-date antivirus software, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems to help you block malware before it can even infect an endpoint device.
  

• Data Protection: Today, the way we need to think about cybersecurity is not if an attack will occur, but when. What would happen if your SMB were hit with a ransomware attack tomorrow? How would you operate if you lost access to your servers and information? The best defense is a robust data backup and recovery strategy to maintain uptime and ensure business continuity. In a previous post, we shared three steps to revise your data protection strategy, including: take stock of your various cloud vendors’ data protection services, back up all necessary applications, and create an immutable copy of your back-ups.
  

• Incident Response Plan: In today's work-from-everywhere landscape, your SMB must be prepared for anything—from natural disasters like flood or fire to increasingly devastating cyberattacks like ransomware. A robust incident response plan can offer the critical protection you need to prevent and minimize the impacts of a disaster. In this post, we share four ways that incident response can benefit your business, including: reduced downtime, enhanced cybersecurity, reputational protection, and safeguards against legal action.
  

• Continuous Monitoring: At N8 Solutions, we often say that uncertainty is the only certainty in IT. Whether you develop an in-house cybersecurity program or partner with a trusted expert, it’s critical that you constantly monitor and improve your environment. By design, cyberattacks morph and grow every day to evade security perimeters and catch unprepared businesses off guard. Network monitoring keeps tabs on your activity, applies patches, troubleshoots, and maintains endpoints for around-the-clock peace of mind. The goal is to spot a problem and fix it before you even realize there’s an issue. At N8 Solutions, we offer a range of affordable, customizable monitoring and support services to protect your business—even when you’re away on that rare vacation. 

If you have one takeaway from this article, we hope it’s this: It’s not if your small business will be the victim of a cyberattack, but when. A small car dealership in Kansas just lost $23,000 when attackers accessed their network, added nine fake employees to the payroll (in less than 24 hours), and paid them before the owner even caught on. Don’t let this happen to you! 

This year, we hope you invest in a robust cybersecurity program to protect your growing business, whether you develop it internally or partner with a trusted expert like N8 Solutions. Take your time to choose the right vendor; for more, here’s five questions to ask in evaluating a cybersecurity partner. Until then, we hope you’ll reach out to schedule a free assessment to take stock of the security at your small business.