The Vital Need To Protect Your Online Business

the vital need to protect online business data

The true spirit of an entrepreneur is one of risk taking, so it is assumed you are reasonably comfortable with an element of risk; but successful entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to protect the downside. As an example, when Richard Branson set up Virgin Atlantic he made a deal with Boeing, that if things didn’t “take off”, so to speak, he could sell the aircraft back to Boeing. 

Today, protecting the downside is more to do with protecting from data loss and online theft; whether that’s identity theft or cyber criminals hacking into our system and holding crucial aspects of data to ransom. 

Consumers are becoming much more aware of the need to ensure the data they provide is kept secure, yet when it comes to an online business things are obviously not as physical, in the sense that it’s not as simple as setting up an alarm to protect from intruders. 

Here is some food for thought on how to protect your online business: 

HAVE A BACK UP 

If you’ve ever been in the position where you’ve lost important data due to hardware failure, accidental damage, or theft… then you’ll have most likely learned the hard way the value of backing up your data to the cloud. If we compare this to an offline business, you wouldn’t keep just one copy of essential documents, you would have a number of copies, some of which would be kept in secure storage - as you would appreciate the tangible value of that asset, and be more connected with the fact such a document is perishable and vulnerable to being lost. 

Keeping a copy of all your work, and in particular crucial documents, in the cloud, will give you the peace of mind that all your precious data will still be there should the worst happen; this can be a time consuming and confusing process, however, which is where managed file transfer software can be helpful. 

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GIVE THE SAFE KEYS TO 

Many famous food companies such as KFC, Coca-Cola and McDonalds have secret recipes. Imagine if these big names gave each of their staff a way to open the safe door that contains the secret recipes of the 11 herbs and spices, French fries or coke that KFC are known for! 

There is a logical need to limit what your employees have access to. You can set permissions on most documents to those in more trusted or responsible positions, particularly when it comes to freelancers, don’t be tempted to give your credit card or digital payment details to them in order to purchase items on your behalf - and be sure to trade with trusted suppliers that are reputable and stable. 

KEEP EVERYTHING UNDER LOCK AND KEY 

You wouldn’t protect your front door with a flimsy lock and key; so why do so many business owners protect their online business with such a basic password? Make sure you don’t use the same password for each account and use a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols. 

COLLECT CASH SECURELY 

Just like how a high street store has a secure till and a safe, rather than having money laid out on the table, you need a secure way of taking payment. PayPal is one of the most trusted and reliable payment systems known throughout the world, which also offers dispute resolution in a similar way to how your bank will protect you from unauthorised use of your credit card.


I hope you enjoyed this article about the importance of protecting your online business.

Interested in more articles about cybersecurity?

Read My Posts:

- How To Improve Your Online Security 

- Take The Lead On Increased Cyber Security At Your Company

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