Top Five Information Protection Tips for SMBs

Symantec has put together the tips below for SMBs to help them ensure they are protecting all the information held by their business.

Get into back-to-school mode: Develop Internet security guidelines and educate employees about Internet safety, security, and the latest threats.  Employees that know what they can click on and what they should stay away from is an important step. It is also important to change passwords regularly and never share them with anyone.

The front door is locked – what about the company information?

SMBs are facing increased risks to their confidential information so safeguarding this data is critical.  One data breach could mean financial ruin for an SMB. Implement a complete protection solution to ensure proprietary information—whether its credit card information, customer data or employee records—is safe.

Implement an effective backup and recovery plan:  Protecting information is more than implementing an antivirus solution.  Backup and recovery is a critical component of complete information protection to keep SMBs’ desktops, servers and applications running smoothly in case of disruption—whether it’s a flood, an earthquake, a virus or a system failure.  One outage could mean customer dissatisfaction and costly downtime, which could be catastrophic to the business.

Secure email and web assets:  Select a mail and Web security solution that can help mitigate spam and email threats so SMBs can protect sensitive information and spend more time on day-to-day activities.  Spammers and phishers will use current events and social engineering tactics to get users to give up personal information such as credit card and banking information.

Always on the go?  Don’t forget endpoint protection

Instead of solely focusing on devices, such as laptops, SMBs need to take a step back and look at where their information is being stored and protect those areas accordingly. In addition to encryption and security updates, it is important to enforce password management for managers and employees. Maintaining strong passwords will help protect the data stored on a laptop if a device is lost or hacked.