What Makes a Business Vulnerable to a Data Breach?

As a business owner in the capital, you’ll be on the lookout for IT support in London to help protect your business from cybercriminals. With cyberattacks and instances of data breaches on the rise, finding the correct level and type of protection for your IT systems and company networks is more important than ever before. To get to the point of optimal protection though, you need to understand a little bit more about how your business could potentially be vulnerable to attack. From this point, your specialist team of IT experts can offer the best advice and guidance to help protect from a data breach and have a robust system installed should a data breach occur.

There are a few things that make a business vulnerable to a potential data breach. These are:

Proven Points of Entry

Think about how you view security for your physical business premises. Are there particular areas that you know are vulnerable and need to be bolstered. A broken window, for instance, a faulty security camera, ease of entry to a building through shared access with other businesses. As in the physical world, cybercriminals will evaluate the potential vulnerable points of a business network and in many cases will enter weeks, or even months, before the crime is committed, testing out the waters and seeing if it is a genuine point of entry. Common points of entry include local wireless networks, cloud environments, mobile networks, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Ensure that your business is covered for all eventualities and that unauthorised access is blocked wherever necessary, adding extra layers of protection against cyberattack.

Phishing Emails

You might have considered that email attacks through phishing emails are not as successful as they might have once been, but you would be wrong. Hackers still use this method to gain access to business networks and personal data and information. This type of approach is aimed at duping a user into clicking a link or entering personal information in order to gain credentials that can be used to infiltrate a network. What this means is that you should have a strong focus on email security and employee knowledge and training in cybersecurity. This is essential to protect against malware and viruses.

Vulnerable Technology

If your business does not have a fully functioning IT department it might mean that you are vulnerable to attack, whether you are using the latest technologies or not. Malicious software and cybercriminals know how to take advantage of a business in these circumstances. Out of date antivirus software and spyware definitions can create vulnerability within your network, as can unpatched operating systems and unsecured networks. If software and servers are not kept up to date and firewalls are incorrectly configured, it can cause a chaos that makes it relatively easy for a cybercriminal to gain access to your network. If you use a lot of technology, but don’t have IT support in place, these vulnerable entry points multiply.

Keeping your Business Safe

Understanding these potential vulnerabilities will go some way to helping you secure the future of your business. In the modern world where we place a greater emphasis on the use of technology in absolutely every part of our lives, it is understandable that you would need some expert assistance within your business to make sure that side of the organisation was active in a safe and secure way.

Just as you hire specialists in every type of role within your business, from finance officers to marketing wizards, why take the chance with your cybersecurity? It is one of the most essential parts of your business and with the damage that cyberattacks and data breaches can cause to your business it is a vital step that must be taken. The last thing you want to experience is a data breach that causes mass disruption, loss of revenue, damaged reputation, and lack of trust with employees and customers.

This is a very sensible approach if you own a business in London and you are worried about the vulnerabilities your organisation faces in terms of suffering a data breach. Once you have figured out what makes your particular business and industry vulnerable to attack, you can work alongside your specialist IT support company to put the measures in place that boost security and help you to prevent a data breach from ever taking place on your watch. Of course, nothing is ever 100% though, and you should also implement a strong and dedicated back-up and recovery plan for the worst-case scenario too. Your choice of London IT support will go a long way to determining how successful you are with this approach.