Ransomware attacks can happen to any business small or big. Although the big attacks, like the recent attack on the meat industry, get all the press, hackers tend to target smaller businesses because oftentimes they do not have the correct protections in place. If you want to learn more about what a ransomware attack is, click here.
So how do you protect yourself?
1. Accept that any company is vulnerable- regardless of size.
Hackers can target any company regardless of size, all they care about is getting their money, it doesn’t matter who it comes from. Actually, smaller companies can be more at risk, as hackers know that the smaller organizations may be so focused on running the day-to-day business and may not have proactively established protections against ransomware attacks.
2. Train employees to detect phishing.
Your employees can serve as the defense line against hackers, but they can also be the culprits of letting someone in. Make sure your employees know not to open suspicious emails, and to only send out emails to people they trust. At the same time, think about setting up a phishing email account for your company where your employees can send weird emails for you to be made aware of.
3. Use Multifactor authentication.
Multifactor authentication makes sure that even if a hacker can get through the first line of defense, they have two or three more steps left to beat. This increases the chances of a hacker giving up and going for another company that may not have this in their way.
4. Keep personal devices off the network.
Personal devices hold a lot of personal information. The more information these hackers know is stored, the more they will want to hack into your servers. The other reason to keep personal devices off of the network is that these are at an even bigger risk for scam emails that can be opened, risky texts sent to phones, or any other kind of personal data breach that could spill over into your business.
5. Make sure your IT professionals are proactively addressing this possibility.
One of the main roles of an IT department is making sure that your software, devices, and servers are safe. Furthermore, it might be good to get assessed by an IT company if you do not have designated employees to do so.
6. Incorporate redundancies into the system.
Make sure you have offline backups and other redundancies in place to protect your data should your systems become compromised by a hacker attack.
7. Last but not least, have cyber liability coverage on your business policy to protect you from some of the financial costs should you ever be faced with a ransomware attack.
This additional coverage can be incorporated in some business owner’s policies, but not all. If you would like to learn more about cyber liability coverage for your business, feel free to visit our website keslarinsurance.com, or give us a call at (603) 273-0953 and one of our agents will be happy to speak with you!
