Cybersecurity Tips to Strengthen Business

Cybersecurity is a serious matter for businesses of all types and sizes and many merchants find these challenges daunting. The good news is that businesses can prepare for them and minimize the impact. A great place to start is to learn about the most common cybersecurity challenges.

Five Common Security Challenges

1. Undefined Strategy – Businesses without a holistic approach to cybersecurity often fail to account for budgeting, tools, staffing, and risk management. By prioritizing cybersecurity from the executive level down, business leaders will be better equipped to protect their companies against cyberattacks.
2. Outdated or Disjointed Tools – Businesses relying on legacy security systems are unprepared to go head-to-head with sophisticated modern cybercriminals. Basic firewall implementations are no longer enough. With every device and system connected to the internet representing a point of vulnerability, security tools need to address factors such as malware prevention, web content filtering, and secure VPNs and Wi-Fi.
3. IT Budget Constraints – Some organizations struggle to find the funding and resources needed to invest in cybersecurity improvements. Already overworked IT staff may struggle to add cybersecurity to their workload and paying qualified IT security experts doesn’t come cheap.
4. Lack of In-House Expertise – Hiring full-time IT staff dedicated strictly to cybersecurity simply isn’t in the budget for every business. And with a lot on their plate already, general IT personnel may not be up to date on the latest fraud tactics and tools that can prevent them. This lack of expertise can lead to companies relying too heavily on a “set-it-and-forget-it” approach; implementing cybersecurity tools but failing to monitor and manage them to make sure they stay current and perform optimally over time.
5. Coverage Gaps – IT staff members may take vacations and other time off work. Automated cyberattacks, on the other hand, do not rest. It can take just minutes for a cyberattack to infiltrate IT systems, making it necessary for businesses to monitor these systems on a 24/7/365 basis.

How Merchants Can Meet These Challenges

After gaining an understanding of the challenges organizations face, businesses must think about how to increase their cybersecurity profile. Fine-turning security strategy, prioritizing threat prevention, diving deeper on threat detection and response, and conducting ongoing security awareness training are good steps to take.

Five Ways Merchants Can Strengthen Security

1. Check for Security Vulnerabilities – Either internally or with a third-party vulnerability scan or penetration test to see what needs to be improved.
2. Eliminate Coverage Gaps – If a merchant only has a part-time IT employee with many other tasks before security, consider supplementing that gap with a reputable security vendor.
3. Educate Employees – Make employees part of the solution with security awareness training. A sophisticated AI-driven cyberattack versus an untrained employee isn’t a fair fight.
4. Develop a Clear Reporting Structure – Ensure that a clear reporting process for employees who see anything unusual from a cybersecurity perspective is in place. Fast response is critical to stopping an attack.

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