Small businesses are the backbone of today’s economy. According to Forbes’ recent study, small businesses contribute to almost half of the American GDP. Today, growing a business without an online presence and being connected to the online world is almost impossible. As a result, it is imperative that small business put a premium on cyber security to protect themselves from outside and internal threats.

Having an online presence and not being focused on securing your business and system from cyber threat is like leaving the front door of your business wide open while the business is closed. Just like you would invest in a security system to secure your physical place of business, it is equally, if not more important to secure your systems from online threats. With the help of computers, hackers constantly devise new ways of compromising the systems that exist today. In recent years, companies like Macy’s, Target and Capital One have been hit hard by hackers causing in result of millions of dollars and loss of customers. Even though these are Fortune 500 companies that have 24 hour security teams, the cyber threats were able to penetrate their business and cause tremendous harm. You might be thinking that this is a large business problem, it’s not going to affect my small business yet, so I’ll worry about it later. This is a very dangerous way of thinking as over 40% of the online breach victims were small businesses. Now, you might be thinking, if large companies that have dedicated security teams can be hacked, what chances do I have as a small business owner. You might also be thinking, I should just pack up and close my business. Of course not! You’re an entrepreneur who understands that yes there are risks, but the only thing a business owner can do is to find ways to mitigate the risks. This is where implementing a security system comes in. Yes, you’re most likely not going to be hiring a team to monitor your business 24/7. But there are still ways to reduce your risks and implement systems to reduce the risks of a breach to your system as much as you can.

There are two ways of mitigating the cyber threats. One is to implement online security system that will alert you when there is a suspicious behavior that is detected or if any part of your system may need updates to patch up any holes in your systems. Often a cyber security analyst can analyze your system and help implement a solution that fits your business and help monitor cyber threats. The second way of mitigating cyber threats is to implement internal security guidelines that help reduce your risks. Having all members of a business aware and educated about the threats and how to deal with the threats such as malicious emails can save you many headaches and problems down the road. Again, consulting a security expert can be extremely helpful in laying out the guidelines of taking proper measures of securing your business internally.

There are many other reasons why investing in security (regardless of your business size) is crucial in today’s world, however the most important one might be that having security breaches can harm your brand. As a small business, your brand is fragile. The competition is fierce in the small business world and having a compromised website or system can be the edge your competition needs to put them over the top. The pain of investing in a security system today is a lot less than the pain of having your website/system attacked and losing your business. Thank you for sticking with me so far. I hope I have shed some light on why you should be aware and level up your security system. Find out if your security system is on par or what you need to do to implement a system for your website/application.