Businesses collect a huge amount of data about their customers and as a business owner, you have a responsibility to protect that information. If your business falls victim to a cyber-attack, it can be incredibly costly and you will have to work hard to build trust with your customers again. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses make simple mistakes that make them more vulnerable to attack. These are some of the biggest data security mistakes that businesses make. 

Weak Passwords 

We have all been guilty of this one at some point in our lives, but it is so important that you do not use weak passwords on anything to do with your business. If all of your employees are using simple passwords that are easy to crack, that makes it so much easier for people to get into your systems and steal your sensitive data. It’s important that you give training on how to set a strong password, and consider using password managers so you don’t need to worry about remembering lots of different complex passwords. It is also important to change passwords regularly to boost security. 

Failing To Backup Data 

No matter how much time and money you put into your security systems, there is always the chance that you will fall victim to an attack. That is why it is so important that you are prepared and you have a backup of all of your data. The best way to manage this is to outsource to an IT company that offers backup services with a help desk & server support so you can stay on top of your data. If you do fall victim to an attack, you can recover data quickly and get your systems up and running again. You are losing money for every second that your systems are down, and if data is lost for good, this can cause you some serious problems, so make sure that you have a good backup in place. 

Lack Of Testing 

The right security software can help to protect you from cyber-attacks, but how do you know if it’s working or not? It is important that you identify weaknesses in your systems and take steps to strengthen your security if you want to avoid attacks. But a lot of businesses don’t know where the weaknesses are because they do not test their systems. You need to use penetration testing to see how secure your systems really are. You will probably be surprised at just how many weak points there are. Then you can make changes to boost your security in the right places. 

Poor Bring Your Own Device Policies 

It is becoming more common for employees to use their own devices for work, especially if they are working from home at times. There are a lot of great benefits to this because people prefer to use their own devices and it can lead to productivity increases. It also saves you money because you don’t need to buy as many computers. However, there are some big security risks there because employees may not be taking the right security measures on their own devices. It is important that you have a clear BYOD policy in place to ensure that all devices that are safe before they can be used to access sensitive data. 

It is important that you avoid these common mistakes if you want to prevent cyber-attacks and keep your data safe.