Small Businesses, Security and Debunking Common Myths

To continue on our theme of security the past few weeks, we will now look at common questions and myths we hear from our small business customers. Most commonly: “We are a small business, we don’t need security” or “We don’t have any info hackers want.”

“Their Firewall Should Protect Me Right?”

When you visit an accounting service, HR system, or banking site, many people think that company’s firewall should be enough to protect your information. This is an incorrect assumption. Just because they have a secure system, does not mean you are free from hackers. You are the one connecting to the system, so you are giving hackers direct access to where the data is.

We had a customer who was hacked, and the hackers found a simple document with the CEO’s signature.  They were able to recreate that signature, and with banking information that they were also able to obtain, they could set up a direct wire transfer.  Thankfully this story had a happy ending, as the bank had to call to authorize the transfer. The ending result could have been drastically worse, if no one had caught it in time.  That is just one example of stories we hear all the time, about the ways hackers can easily disable a company with just a small amount of information.

“I have a firewall already though!”

Did you know you should be getting a new firewall every 4 or 5 years with all the new technological advances?  You may need a new firewall if your company experiences high growth or if your speed is faster than your firewall is.  The firewalls that we install self-update every five minutes to be sure that they are secure and operating properly. You want to make sure that you have the latest in security technology to keep your company as safe as possible for cyber attacks.

Even with a firewall scanning all inbound and outbound traffic, you want to make sure you have good anti-virus software, anti-malware software, protection on your email, all coupled with a good backup process. (and no, not just one or the other)