Joseph-harmon – The development of technology, especially the Internet, has many benefits in all aspects of human life. The Internet can make work easier, shorten communication distances, and become a medium for sharing information very quickly.
Along with benefits, technology has also paved the way for cyber criminals to spread threats that harm many people, including business owners. In the business world, cybercrime takes the form of system intrusion, theft of personal data, and the spread of false information.
To anticipate and deal with cybercrime, business people must improve cyber security to secure data about business. Especially if you are a small business owner, it is important that you properly understand cyber security and how important it is to protect your business.
Through this article, let’s discuss cyber security thoroughly, in terms of understanding, benefits, and how to improve cyber security.
What is Cyber Security?
Cyber security is an effort to protect systems, programs, networks, and other elements from digital crime attacks. These cyber crime usually have the goal of accessing, modifying, spreading, and even destroying important and sensitive systems or information without permission.
Cyber crime has many bad impacts on your business, the worst of which is disrupting business operational activities to the point where you lose money and go bankrupt.
To prevent this from happening, it’s time for you to implement cyber security to protect your business.
Why Should Your Business Implement Cyber Security?
There are still many business people who have not prioritized the existence of cyber security, especially small businesses that are still developing. Usually they only apply cyber security when the company experiences a cyber attack on a computer system or network.
Even if you are just concerned about cyber security at this stage, the burden that your business bears will be heavier, especially from a reputational and financial perspective, than the burden when you implement cyber security from the start.
In essence, efforts to protect your business from cyber crime by implementing cyber security are important and the main things that must be done as early as possible.
Cyber Security Concepts That Must Be Understood
These three ideas are additionally known as CIA ideas. Consider the following explanation to help you comprehend the notion of cyber security.
1. Confidentiality
Confidentiality refers to a technique used to keep data safe from those who are not authorized to access it. As a result, all stored data has to be kept private from outsiders; only admins and authorized users may access, alter, add, or remove them.
By limiting data access to certain individuals, the idea of secrecy is put into effect.
2. Integrity
Integrity is the effort put out to uphold the reliability and consistency of data in order to keep it secure and reliable. This implies that saved data cannot be read, altered, or destroyed without administrator permission.
3. Accessibility
The term “availability” refers to whether the necessary data is accessible. If the individuals who need the data can’t get to it, then the most secure data will be worthless. This implies that in order to be accessible, systems, networks, and applications must be in good working order.
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Elements of Cyber Security
Cyber security has at least six elements that you should pay attention to. The following are the six elements along with their full explanation.
1. Application Security (USA)
This is an element that has the function to add security features in the application during development to prevent cyber attacks. Application security can protect websites and website-based applications from various types of digital security threats that can exploit vulnerabilities in the source code.
2. Information Security (IS)
Information Security, or what is commonly shortened to InfoSec, is an element of cyber security that refers to the processes and methods used to prevent unauthorized access, use, modification or destruction of data by outsiders.
This data can be in the form of personal information, financial information, or even your social media information, and much more.
3. Network Security
Network Security is a cyber security element that functions to prevent and protect data on the network against illegal access.
Typically, this is done by implementing a set of rules and configurations that prevent and monitor illegal access, abuse, and modification of networks and resources, be it hardware or software.
4. Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
A Disaster Recovery Plan is a cyber security element that functions as a plan or procedure that must be carried out after a disaster occurs, such as data leakage, data loss, and so on. The plan or procedure must be able to ensure that activities can run normally after a disaster occurs.
5. Operational Security (OPSEC)
Operational Security is a cyber security element that functions as an analysis and risk management for cyber security. OPSEC will identify important information from an organization and develop protection mechanisms to ensure the security of all important and sensitive data.
6. End-User Education
End-User Education is the most important element of cyber security because end-users are the biggest threat of cyber attacks. End-User Education is an educational process regarding data security policies, procedures and protocols to these end users so that they can avoid cyber crime.
Benefits of Cyber Security for Your Small Business
There are lots of benefits that can be felt if your business implements good cyber security. The following are some of the benefits of cyber security for your business.
1. Protected Data and Information
Data and information is a very important asset in today’s digital era. However, if it is misused, this data and information can be very detrimental, such as losing money and disrupting business activities. Important data and information that is stored, or in transit, can be safely maintained if cyber security is implemented properly and correctly.
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2. Maintaining Consumer Trust
If data and information from consumers can be safely maintained, they will trust your business and possibly become loyal customers. Therefore, you must implement good and correct cyber security.
3. Business Always Accessible
Usually, to access a business, consumers will do it through the business’ official website. So, by implementing good and correct cyber security, the website can always be accessed easily by consumers. So, your business activities can run smoothly.
How to Improve Cyber Security
Here are easy steps from Joseph-harmon.com you can take to improve cyber security, both for yourself and for your company.
1. Realize that everyone can become a victim of cyber crime
Never assume that you are secure online without security measures since online crime is very closely tied to daily life. Everyone who uses software or hardware is at risk of being attacked by cyber crime. This can jeopardize personal and company security.
2. Keep the software up to date
Installing software updates for programs and operating systems on a regular basis is important. You can enable automatic updates to your operating system, applications, and web browsers and their plug-ins. By updating regularly, you will get the latest security system.
3. Use antivirus as a defense in cyber security
Antivirus function to detect and eliminate threats. Currently, there are many antivirus software that have different features and advantages. You can choose the software that suits your needs so that your data will be better protected from various viruses.
4. Use a unique password to strengthen cyber security
Make sure the password you use is not easy for others to guess. You can use a combination of uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and punctuation.
5. Be careful with foreign emails
In addition to telephone numbers, email is an identity that is usually widespread. As a result, it is easy for cyber crime to send malware to your email. Therefore, do not open links or attachments in obscure emails from unknown senders.
6. Reducing the use of public Wi-Fi
Public networks are usually free and not password protected, but they are insecure and can make your device vulnerable to cyber attacks. Therefore, it’s better to use Wi-Fi from a trusted source or mobile data so that your data will be more secure.
7. Do not leave electronic devices carelessly
In addition to technical security, you also have to maintain physical security. When leaving an electronic gadget anywhere, it is best to lock it or switch it off. Make sure that any data you keep on a flash drive or portable hard drive is encrypted and protected.
8. Hold training on cyber security for employees
Cyber security is everyone’s responsibility. All employees in a company must understand cyber security for the sake of data security and shared systems.
9. Perform a risk assessment to support cyber security
There are many threats that can disrupt the security of corporate networks, systems and information. Therefore, identification and analysis of possible threats can help you formulate a security plan.
This is an explanation of the importance of cyber security and its benefits for your small business. Keep in mind that anticipating or preventing is better than dealing with cyber crime. For this reason, it is important for you to implement cyber security from the moment your business starts operating.