Prepare for the fall
The school holidays are almost over and so is summer. With back to school, yellowing leaves, and soon pumpkin spice latte and warmer socks, autumn is coming in tiny steps. I love this time of the year!
It’s also a good time to reflect on your marketing strategy and “lean” into your business technology and cyber security strategy.
Life goes round in a circle! Just as in nature, in business change is infinite. So reach out for your notebook and carry out a check to see if your security is strong.
Start now!
Here is a list of things you should deal with right away:
1. Assess risk, data integrity and availability
2. Perform a security update
3. Change your passwords and make sure they are strong and difficult (Pa$$word is not a strong password)! See our blog P4$$w0rD is not a good password – Octagon Technology
4. Make sure you have multi-factor authentication (MFA) and VPN active on your phone
6. If you employ staff train them in cybersecurity awareness
Staff training plays a key role. Why? Because “lack of organisational knowledge hampers anyone’s cyber security efforts. This equally applies to individuals, large and small organisations and government departments.” – Clive Catton, Smart Thinking Solutions.
It is shocking but true that over 60% of businesses are unaware of vulnerabilities in their organisation before they are breached. Data breaches will significantly hurt your business. The average estimated cost to a small business is £8,460. The cost is higher for medium and large organisations. After identifying a breach, most businesses (89%) manage to restore operations within 24 hours, but 3% take a week or longer (Cybereason, 2022). Can you afford even a few hours downtime?
The best thing any business can do to stay cyber-proof is to plan ahead and prepare so think how you use technology and take a note of your:
• online bank account
• social media account or pages
• software and hardware to store personal information about customers
• network-connected devices
• ability for customers to order or pay online
Think again
If you’re planning on an autumn marketing push to increase sales, you should start looking into your technology and cyber security strategy now. Maybe now it’s a good time to rethink your approach?
We have prepared some tools for you to help you with incident planning and risk assessment. Contact me if you want to receive the video, featuring advice from our cyber security consultant Clive Catton.
Contact me for more information.
Kamila
