In the digital age, small businesses must navigate a landscape filled with cyber threats. While large corporations have extensive resources to mitigate cyber risks, small businesses often operate with more limited budgets and IT expertise. However, cybersecurity is not a luxury—it’s a necessity.
With novel coronavirus (COVID-19) creating more demand for companies to facilitate remote work capabilities for employees, security must be carefully managed. A number of new threat trends are specifically targeting remote workers, including phishing, malware, directed attacks on home networks and more. We have compiled this list of best practices and configurations to avoid to assist your company in managing its remote workforce and maximizing security resilience as a follow-up to our article about preparing your business for remote work. In addition, please review our cybersecurity presentation for SMBs: risks, trends and best practices.
The COVID-19 pandemic is creating significant disruptions in business operations. Wherever possible, we strongly recommend that businesses put continuity plans in place to facilitate remote work and collaboration for an extended period of time. As a part of these continuity plans we recommend ensuring that remote workers are able to conduct their business securely, and that functionality is tested before going in to production.
We were thrilled and honored to be invited to participate in a cybersecurity panel hosted by the Arlington Chamber of Commerce alongside Arlington’s Economic Development BizLaunch initiative on Wednesday, January 29th, 2020.
Cybersecurity is a critical part of every business’ operational durability. Without attention to it, an attack can be crippling. We recommend business owners and managers view cybersecurity as an investment, rather than a sunk cost, as it pays in dividends of business continuity and resilience.