Taking your business into the online world allows you to find new markets and customers all across the globe, but it also exposes your enterprise to new reputational and financial risks.
Understanding the source of these potential threats and how to mitigate them can go a long way towards ensuring your online experience is a positive one.
Protect Your Reputation
In today’s digitally-focused, customer-centric world, it’s essential to have a proactive, reputation management strategy in place to ensure potential customers see your enterprise in the best possible light if they search for information about your company online.
Set up alerts so that you receive notification whenever your company is mentioned in a blog post, customer comment box or social media site.
If you come across negative feedback, do your best to address whatever issues have been raised so that, at the very least, members of the public can see that you are always striving to provide top-quality customer service.
Choose your cloud provider with care
Reputable cloud companies, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google, have a long track record and thousands of satisfied companies. They have also repeatedly proved themselves to have systems that are robust enough to stand up to major cyberattacks.
For example, at AWS cloud security has always been the highest possible priority in order to protect the critical information and data of those using the service. There is, however, a shared responsibility to this which means that if you want your company to be as secure as possible, you need to ensure your AWS environment is correctly configured.
For example, AWS has multiple layers of security to prevent unauthorized access, but if a customer turns on these security systems on for its individual users, Amazon itself will not be responsible for any data breaches.
Although you may be tempted to purchase a service from a smaller company offering more competitive pricing, it is important to make your choice on the basis of quality as well. Most cloud providers will dedicate at least a page of their website to talking about the security measures that they have in place.
If you can’t find such a page on a company you are considering, take your business elsewhere.
Train your staff
Although cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the ways they go about their business, the weakest link for the vast majority of companies is down to their own employees.
Opening emails that at first glance look as though they have come from a regular contact at another company or even one of their colleagues can lead to viruses or malware being introduced into your network.
Training sessions to ensure staff members are on the alert for such attacks should be held on a regular basis. While some firms carry out such training once a year, this is simply not sufficient as the nature of the threat changes too rapidly.
You might also consider hiring a firm to periodically send fake emails to key members of staff to see how they react. Those who open such emails can then be provided with additional training.
So what are you doing to take care of your business and employees?
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