5 Ways to Improve The Security of Your Brand Online

When running an online business, the question of cybersecurity often gets pushed into the corner. Everyone wants to know about payment integrations, customer satisfaction, CX, and UI, and the matter of cybersecurity sometimes gets treated (by guides) like a side note.

The truth is that unless you can protect your online business, it really doesn’t matter how big of a success you make. The bigger you get, the bigger the target on your back becomes. In other words, the sooner you resolve this issue, the better.

With that in mind, and without further ado, here are the top five ways you can improve the security of your brand online.

1.  Start using VPN

The first thing you need to do to keep your brand secure is to ensure that company data is not as vulnerable to various security threats. The enhanced encryption provided by VPNs can help you with this.

Namely, whenever you run an online business, the only way to make changes is to log in. This means that all your assets are accessed remotely. You need this extra encryption when trying to protect your company data from cyber threats.

It’s likely that most of your team works remotely, so requiring them to use a VPN, like one of the best ones listed here, when working can be a great way to boost your overall cybersecurity. Aleksandar Stevanovic says using a VPN secures all your online activities, making it much more difficult for hackers, advertisers, and third parties to access your personal data.

Like most other SaaS platforms, some VPNs have enterprise-wide plans. This means that you can pay for a license that your entire team can use. This is the most cost-effective way of approaching the situation and the most secure one. After all, you’re not risking some of your employees skipping this part because they can’t find a good VPN or dislike the idea of having to pay for one.

2.  Increase your education efforts

You’re not the only one accessing your online resources. This means that even if you do everything right, both your employees and your users are still a liability. The best you can do is make it harder for them to be lazy (introduce a mandatory strong password to register) and teach them how to be safer online.

Education is a make-it-or-break-it step for a number of reasons. First, even when you insist on a strong password, there are so many ways to slacken here. You can prevent them from using their pet’s name as a password by insisting on adding a number and a symbol, but there’s no way of stopping them from replacing “a” with “@” in their pet’s name and just adding “1” or “123” at the end of the name.

Moreover, while a lot of people don’t click on links in emails that you send them, somehow, they have a habit of clicking on a link of someone impersonating a member of your team. This is the oldest trick in the phishing book and, while it’s not your fault, it will cause damage and you’ll end up taking the fall.

Unfortunately, there’s really not too much you can do here. Still, you have to try. Leave hints and tips everywhere, remind them that a member of your team will never ask for their password, and hope that this will be enough.

3.  Benefits of penetration testing

The truth is that you can’t know how impenetrable your system is until you test it under pressure. One of the best ways to do so is with the help of a concept known as penetration testing.

The simplest way to explain penetration testing is to say that it implies hiring a “good” hacker to help you test your system. This means getting a person who is actually knowledgeable in the dark art of hacking to try to break into your system.

This way, you’re doing the thing you’re trying to prevent, but you’re doing it under controlled circumstances.

While this is great as a form of audit, it’s not a one-and-done process. You need someone to test your system on a relatively frequent basis. This way, you can test the new state of affairs, make some improvements, and engage in penetration testing once again. It’s a never-ending cycle of system improvement that you have to acknowledge.

The process itself is far more complex than that. For instance, you have to see how the system will behave under various circumstances. This is why you need to do both static and dynamic analysis.

4.  Focus on specific problems in your industry

There are so many threats out there that it’s really hard to classify them all. One thing you have to acknowledge, however, is the fact that some industries are more exposed to specific types of cybersecurity threats.

For instance, healthcare institutions are more exposed to ransomware attacks. In these attacks, malicious software locks patient records and demands decryption keys. This is dangerous because it can be potentially life-threatening.

Then, in the financial sector, retail, and e-commerce, you’re working with tremendous amounts of customer financial information. Credit card fraud, point-of-sale hacks, and other threats are present here. This is an especially attractive target for these malicious parties, mostly because it results in direct financial gain.

Most importantly, unique problems aren’t exclusive to industries. Different business models can find themselves in pretty unique scenarios, cybersecurity-wise. This is one of the main reasons why you have guides that specialize in SaaS security practices.

By figuring out which categories your own enterprise falls under, you’ll have an easier job of developing a solid cybersecurity plan.

5.  Restricting access

Lastly, you need to control who has access to what kind of information. Fortunately, with the right project management tool (collaboration platform), you can do just that.

It’s not that you don’t trust people you bring in; it’s that personal information leaks, people are reckless with their personal devices and the way they use public networks, and more. The thing is that the majority of people use personal devices for work, but they don’t really have the awareness that they’re putting their employer in danger. Instead, they see this as their own risk and business.

You can avoid this becoming a major problem by giving them access on a need-to-know basis.

Second, sometimes you won’t know who you’re working with. The truth is that every vetting process is flawed, and it can never be 100% accurate. Even if it could, there’s no way to predict someone who’s about to become a “first-time offender.” By restricting their access until they prove themselves, you’re already making a huge step in the right direction.

Lastly, you sometimes give partners access (making them their own Basecamp or Trello account), and by limiting their access, you satisfy their curiosity and boost transparency without revealing too much.

Keeping your brand safe is just as important as building it up

If you can’t keep your online business safe, you shouldn’t even bother building it. If you lose data, have to pay ransom every month, lose the personal and financial information of your customers, and expose your brand to bad publicity, it doesn’t matter what quality of service you provide. You must take your cybersecurity seriously, and these five steps are a decent outline of a general cybersecurity plan.