Given the extreme weather happening all over the U.S. lately, we are naturally having conversations about security precautions. However, you shouldn’t wait until a disaster strikes in order to think about this. By then it’s too late.
Here are five security precautions business owners need to take on a regular basis. These will help protect you and your clients.
Backup your computers.
As a business owner, you need to do regular backups of your computer. If you have more than one, those need to be backed up as well.
Emergencies aside, hardware can break at any time. I remember traveling and needing to meet a deadline only for my laptop to fail to connect to WiFi. Upon returning home, I realized it’s because it was about to die.
Fortunately, I do regular backups so it was simply a matter of loading everything to my new computer. As for how regularly you should do backups, I would shoot for a couple of times a month at least.
Backup your website.
One of the security precautions I failed to take when I was just starting out was to backup my website. I did an update on a plugin one morning, it messed everything up and I lost a year’s worth of content. In retrospect, maybe it’s a good thing I lost my earlier content. Even still, this is not fun to deal with.
If you have a WordPress website you can use something like BackupBuddy. There are plenty of free services for backing up sites as well. And finally, your hosting provider should allow you to do regular backups as well.
Update your plugins.
I know I just mentioned how I updated a plugin and my entire website got messed up. Truthfully, that’s only happened once. Also, if I had been smart enough to do backups it wouldn’t have been a big deal.
The reality is you need to update your website plugins on a regular basis as one of your security precautions. Failure to do so could result in getting hacked and that is way worse than losing some content. Simply put, if you get hacked and you have client information on your site, you put their information in jeopardy.
Use secure payment systems.
If you are taking payments online, you need to make sure the proper security precautions are in place. You also need to make sure you are in compliance with PCI regulation. This means you need to protect cardholder data and use encryption.
For example, Due uses algorithms and live monitoring to make sure there isn’t any fraudulent activity. This keeps your information safe as well as that of your clients’. They also use encryption to avoid any data compromise.
Change your passwords often.
Perhaps one of the most overlooked security precautions is to change your password. Some software, like my CRM, automatically makes me do this every three months. However, most of the time it’s on you.
Final Thoughts
By taking these security precautions often, business owners will have less to worry about when stuff really goes down. Some of these precautions are required, so make sure you’re staying up to date.
