How To Strengthen Cybersecurity Of Your Startup

With the rise of malwares nowadays, it has become very important to have a strong cybersecurity plan, especially for startups just beginning their journey in the business world. As a report suggests, almost 43 % of cyberattacks are focused on startups and small businesses as they are more vulnerable to security breach than big corporations.  If your startup is working in such an environment and has limited resources to protect itself from security breaches, these tips can help you secure your data online.

Tips to strengthen the cybersecurity of your startup

1) Start with the right plan

It’s always easier to start with the right plan and to get your basics right to help you secure your startup.  By identifying the important information valuable to your startup and keeping it separate from public information, one can avoid losing important information due to major security breaches.

2) Securing cloud storage

Startups use cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive to store important data about the company.  Sometimes, they fail to recognize the risks of backing up data in this manner. Even though the cloud services take extra steps to secure all the stored information, it is not completely secure from hackers.  Installing advanced and internal firewalls as well as intrusion detection system are some simple steps one can adopt to protect their startup’s data. Some of the best cloud firewalls in the market right now are CloudFlare WAF, Amazon Web Services WAF and Sophos XG Firewall, which are easy to use and offer multiple security features. 

3) Use stronger passwords

Sometimes, instead of using advanced software to hack into a startup network system, hackers just type in passwords to get access.  It is wiser to set up passwords with multiple special characters and to avoid using the same password for multiple platforms, to keep your network system protected.

4) Two factor authentication

Using multiple factors to log in to the system is a clever way to protect your account and information from security breach.  Two factor authentication helps in verifying the identity of a user, usually through password and a second factor like SMS verification.  Two factor authentication can be used anywhere from protecting your email accounts to your Dropbox account and more. Many Companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft provide this service, which can be used by any startup to ensure its online security. 

5) Educating the employees

It is a good idea to put the employees of a startup through a cybersecurity training.  The training can be about how cybersecurity works and in which direction it is headed and most importantly, how the employees can contribute to protect their organization from security breaches.

With the cost of data breaching expected to increase to $ 150 million by 2020, it is important to take every precaution available to save startups from losing money and time.

If you have any other tips about strengthening the cybersecurity of a startup, comment below and let us know.