6 Ways to Level Up Your Startup's Data Security
In the past couple of weeks alone, a handful of startup data breaches made the news.
SWVL, an Egyptian startup, quickly logged users out of their accounts before hackers could gain access to financial information and more sensitive data. However, the startup believed that hackers must have been able to access names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
Babylon Health, a health startup in the UK, also suffered such a breach where users could access other people’s consultation sessions. Who knows how many hackers would have had a field day with that flaw, or what else is missing.
The sad fact is that a hacking attempt occurs every 39 seconds. SMBs – the class to which startups belong – also share about 43% of those breaches. This tells you that you have to do more to ensure you don't make the news for the wrong reasons.
#1 Keep IT on Alert
The IT department of your startup should be invested in knowing how their colleagues and other employees are using, storing, and syncing company data.
There is a blurred line between personal and work devices these days. That blurriness could lead to the employee syncing and scoring company data on unencrypted servers, or over unencrypted networks.
Once the IT department can maintain visibility over this, they can best inform on the proper way forward to minimize and eliminate risks from employee behaviors.
#2 Collective Defense
No matter what the above heading might have suggested, cybersecurity is not the job of one department alone. Everyone has to be involved in the success of this model. After all, up to 95% of data breaches are a result of human error.
The staff members should be sensitized on the various data breaches that could come their way and how to avoid them. Phishing attacks remain the grandfather of all social hacking schemes, and only proper knowledge can help fight it. The FBI is also recording increasing cases of Business Email Compromise (BEC) crimes, among others.
When everyone knows what they should do and look out for, the chances of human error become lower.
#3 Train Your Employees
An effective way to ensure that your employees are vigilant about current cybersecurity trends and potential threats is to hold training sessions regularly.
You and your staff should be aware of recent trends and have information in the most updated tools you can use for your company.
It is common for startups to require their staff to bring their personal device to work. Although it is understandable that startups do not have the budget for devices for every employee, this culture is discouraged. By letting your staff use personal devices, you make are putting your company’s network at risk since you have no control over how the device is used outside of work.
If it is impossible for the company to provide a work device for your staff, then educating them on cybersecurity becomes essential for the security of the whole company.
#4 Secure your Network
Your company’s internet network is what you send all communication and share files over. You might not see it this way yet, but anyone with access to that network can hijack all that is sent over it. That is why network security is critical.
If a network is not encrypted, neither you nor your employees should be using such. Hackers can easily hijack your conversations, install malware on your units, and even breach your computers otherwise.
A low-cost, tested, and tried method to keep your network encrypted is downloading a VPN. By tunneling your internet data and files transfer over multiple servers, no one knows what is happening on your internal networks.
Side Note: Let employees know that they should never use a public Wi-Fi network due to their lack of encryption. If they have no other option but to use this, they should layer their connection over a VPN to ensure encryption.
#5 Stay Up-To-Date
Device software updates and upgrades are usually there to fix bugs and patches to vulnerabilities found in the system. When you do not get the updates when due, you leave your systems exposed to hacks from those bugs.
Updating your devices and software/ apps/ programs should be a dedicated task for the IT department if there is one. In the current work atmosphere where work devices can also be personal units, though, everyone should even know how to keep their units and tools up to date.
#6 Set Strong Passwords
Speaking more on human error, the lack of a strong password could spell doom for the startup.
Reliable and secure passwords cost nothing to get. An online password generating tool will turn up safe picks that will take years to hack in mere seconds. Unique passwords should also be stored in password managers to prevent password fatigue. Finally, two-factor authentication should be turned on for accounts that support such.
