In this post, we are going to look at the threat of cybercrimes and how they could affect your business. We’ll address what makes them such a threat and what you can do to prevent them. We’ll even show you how you can prepare for the worst and how crisis management training can make sure your team is equipped to handle a crisis should one arise.
What Are Cyber Crimes And How Do They Affect You?
Cybercrimes, as the name suggests, are crimes which involve computers and a network. The computer can be used to commit the crime, can be the target of the crime or both. As a business, you are likely to hold a lot of information. This data can be valuable if resold on the dark web, making your business a prime target for data theft cybercrimes. Email addresses, payment details and more – it’s all worth something to someone. Whether it’s as simple as stealing card details and money, or personal information to be reused as part of a scam people stand to make money off your data if you don’t protect it.
How Can you Protect Yourself?
There are plenty of ways you can improve your data protection. Firstly, start with secure passwords. Don’t make passwords something obvious. Change them periodically and don’t repurpose the same password across multiple accounts. Complex passwords are harder to figure out and regularly changing them makes any accidental slip up revealing you now old password redundant. Repurposing the same passwords makes you as strong as your weakest link. Sure, one system may be secure but if you use the same password on something else with weaker security you have now left both accounts vulnerable.
Passwords are a great starting point but if you are serious about data protection there are many services available which you should investigate. You can have penetration testing which is where ethical hackers attempt to hack your app, website or system in order to identify weaknesses. If these ethical hackers can breach your security s to can cybercriminals use their findings to make your cybersecurity stronger.
Finally, training is essential. One of the biggest risk factors when it comes to cyberattacks is people. Correctly training your employees on cybersecurity and proper data protection protocol will reduce the risk of falling victim to cybercrime.
PR And Crisis Management
Staff need training on more than just data protection though. If your preventative measures don’t do the trick or you fall victim to an attack before you are able to implement the new security measures, you could face a potentially huge PR disaster. In this case, the cybersecurity ship has sailed, of course, you want to protect yourself from future attacks but right now you need to manage the crisis. In this event, your staff need to be correctly trained on crisis management or risk making the situation worse. At Kiasu Crisis Management, we offer crisis management training for when the worst-case scenarios show up. It’s easy to go into a panic when you are hit by a cyberattack and are facing backlash but through crisis management training, you will know exactly how to act. You will know everyone’s role and will be able to remain level-headed.
In summary, cybercrime is a very real threat and your business is a prime target. Thankfully there are cybersecurity measures you can implement to reduce your risk. If, however, you still fall victim to an attack and must face unhappy customers, clients and partners you’ll want your team to be trained to manage the bad PR and navigate you through the turbulent time.
