There are so many things to think about when owning or running a business, but most of us don’t set aside much time to consider cybersecurity. A breech of cybersecurity can wreck havoc on a business, from putting their client’s confidential information at risk, through to losing their social media accounts. There’s a financial cost associated with cybercrime too, with millions of pounds each year being lost to this time of crime on small to medium sized businesses. If you’d like to learn more about cybercrime, and how you can best protect your business, keep reading to learn more:

1. Best Defence Against Cyber Crime
According to a recent study, more than 88% of businesses had at least one form of cyber protection in place to help minimise the chance they would fall victim to cybercrime. Common types of protection include firewalls, anti virus software, and multi-factor authentication. Ensuring that company passwords are changed regularly can help minimise the risk of cybercrime, as well as paying attention to any suspicious emails. As they say, prevention is the best defence and stopping a cybercrime from happening is much better than having to deal with the pieces after the fact.

2. The Real Cost of Cybercrime
While it’s possible to put a figure on the total cost of cybercrime on small to medium businesses each year, there’s so much more that goes into it. Depending what is done to your social media accounts, it can impact sales and go as far to impacting the brand’s image if the hackers post malicious content. It’s impossible to quantify how much damage an attack like that can do, both to brand image and client relationships. Many businesses use their social media as advertising platforms, so losing access to them can also result in a considerable loss of sales.

3. What Can we Do About Cybercrime?
Beyond security measures, there’s not a ton that you can do to protect your business. Many industries are hiring cybersecurity graduates to help stay on top of these issues, such as government’s, finance and banking, and networking firms. As technology develops, so do the strategies that hackers use to gain access to your business and social media accounts. For this reason, many companies find it invaluable to have cybercrime insurance, which can help manage the situation if something does happen. There’s a lot of costs associated with a cyber breach, such as any publicity required to inform customers of a breach, as well as the costs of meeting ransoms and restoring any lost data can be considerable. Having insurance will help ensure you can afford to cover the costs associated with the cybercrime, but will also allow you access to a specialised helpline that can help offer support of what to do next.

Cybercrime can absolutely devastate a small to medium sized business, so hopefully these tips give you the confidence to navigate this difficult situation.