Is it possible that your business is hanging out there with a breach? Here are 4 security checks to make before hitting the beach.
This summer, when we would all love to spend time at the beach, the last thing you need to do is worry that your systems are not secure.
When businesses are at their most vulnerable time; hackers will take advantage.
It’s the perfect timing. Employees are covering for other team members who are off during the summer for (beach) vacations; it is a time when they are too busy to focus on little alerts that might pop up. This can happen at any time of the year, but occurs often during holidays and peak sales cycles.
Before you leave on your next trip, or dive head first into your busiest season, here are 4 areas of your business that should be checked.
1) Guest WiFi you offer to customers and clients who visit your business. First of all, it should be a “Guest” access, a different access point than the one you use for your business operations. It should also have password access that you only give to your customers. Also, you probably want to change it through the year to make sure that people outside of your business are not hopping on the bandwidth and slowing everyone else down. (Nothing is more frustrating than accessing a Guest WiFi and not being able to even check in on Facebook or upload an Instagram pic you just took.)
2) Your security system. It is so easy today to get wireless cameras and install them in a business, whether you choose to self-install or hire a professional. Make sure whoever does the installation is using a separate access point to the Internet. This is a common issue that we see, where there is an open data port and hackers can walk right in the “back door” to your business systems – and this won’t show up on the video recording.
3) The POS. When a Point-of-Sale system is installed, it should have the proper set up, with separate account access to the Internet for an added layer of security in your credit card processing. After that, run the updates for every security and software release that is issued. If you are paying for software release updates that include security improvements, you might have the wrong software provider.
4) Cloud based software. Think about all of the cloud based software you run in the business. It could be that accounting application used to let your accountant access your bookkeeping records more easily. Have you run diagnostics on this recently? Are the passwords up to date? Don’t let anyone else in that you don’t want to have access to this important business data.
It is not as hard as it sounds; plus, as your partner in providing secure business solutions, we can help. Add one more thing to your checklist before you go: e-mail us and we will help make sure everything in your business is locked down and you are not hanging out there…at risk of a breach, while you just want to relax on the beach.