How Businesses Get Hacked

Getting hacked is one of the worst challenges a business can face. This is because the consequences of hacking can include loss of data, personal data of staff getting stolen, malware being installed to shutdown all operations, and even money being stolen from business accounts. With the perils that surround online hacking, it’s mystifying to think that not enough businesses know of the many things they can put in place to severely limit and even prevent the risk of this happening to them. Too many businesses, big and small, have been hacked mainly due to their own poor practices and unsubstantial security measures. To help businesses learn about what they can do to prevent this happening to them, here are some of the ways businesses get hacked.

Human Error

One of the main ways hackers and malware gets into a business’s computer systems is simply because a member of staff was so naive and ill-informed that they let these people in. Untrained members of staff are more susceptible to fall for phishing attacks or to access the cloud data through unsecure devices and internet networks. By taking the time to train staff, and making them aware of some of the common risks, businesses can severely reduce the risk of a security breach happening in their workplace.

It’s also a good idea to implement robust storage and backup methods to prepare for the event of an individual making a mistake. Backing up data in secure files means that even if data is stolen, locked away or deleted by a hacker, work can still continue as normal while IT specialists start on fixing the problem.

Poor Implementation of Security Software

There is plenty of software out there that businesses can use to help protect their networks and keep data out. The most common of these are firewalls and VPNs which combine to make it virtually impossible for outsiders to access the network. This is because VPNs put your network onto a different server, making it hard for hackers to access, while firewalls check every single attempt an external source makes to try to access a network and either accepts or denies it based on a set of predetermined rules.

Of course, many businesses still don’t utilize any of this technology, mainly to cut costs or maybe because they don’t have a robust enough IT department to implement it. Either way, ignoring these vital security measures puts your entire business at risk. It’s a good idea as a small business to find services that can manage all your IT solutions for you such as USWired.

Outdated Security Measures

Having a VPN, firewall, antivirus software and even encryption in place is the best way of preventing cybercrime, however, their effectiveness drastically decreases the older they get. This is because hacking and cyber crime is an ever-advancing and ever-changing industry, meaning hackers are finding out new ways to infiltrate and are creating new malware that older software just doesn’t know how to deal with. Due to this, it’s important to keep your security software well maintained and well up to date, so that it has the right code and knowledge to both identify new threats as well as stop them.

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