security

Become Super Secure: Combat Identity Thieves Before They Strike

/ nancyrubin

One of the biggest crime waves occurring right now is not taking place on the street. Instead, it is taking place in the digital realm. Identity theft and the resulting fraud costs Americans $16 billion a year. 

Identity theft is a huge problem that affects millions of Americans. If you don’t want to become a victim, you need to take precautions. Below are some preventive measures you can take to protect you and your business from identity thieves. 

Use Third Party Online Payment Systems When You Can

Releasing your business or personal credit card number to a large number of websites can greatly increase your chances of becoming the victim of fraud. It only takes one of those sites being hacked to lead to you being victimized. However, you can use third party payment systems like PayPal to help better obscure your credit and debit card details when making purchases. In fact, you really don’t need a card at all to use PayPal. The service can remove the funds directly from your company checking account. 

Get Security Chips on Your Credit and Debit Cards

The new standard for both Visa and Master Card is to include a microchip on the cards that helps to verify purchases. Traditional cards, however, used a magnetic strip with static data that could be more easily stolen by identity thieves. Purchases made via chip cards however use different data for each purchase. This makes them far more secure. If you don’t have one yet, call your credit card company or bank and ask them to update your cards. 

Upgrade Your Physical Protection

Although we tend to think of identity thieves in terms of the internet, they could also target your physical business as well. This kind of theft can be more nefarious since you may not notice anything missing until it’s too late and you have been defrauded of thousands of dollars. Make sure to shred any important documents you put in your trash. Also make sure your building is physically secured. Consider hiring a locksmith to upgrade your door locks. Smart door locks, for example, can be programmed to only open with the scanning of a thumb print or retina. 

Identity theft is a huge risk for millions of people and especially businesses. If you make business purchase online, use a credit card or store financial information in your office, you could be a target. Do everything you can to protect your company. Being cautious can help you to avoid a financial catastrophe.

Guest author, Kara Masterson, is a freelance writer from West Jordan, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah and enjoys writing and spending time with her dog, Max.

3 Ways to Keep Your Business Location Secure and Safe

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Your business faces threats that go beyond the stiff competition of other companies. In fact, if you have a brick-and-mortar location, the biggest threat you face is against the security of the building itself. Since the building represents such a significant capital investment,it’s important to do all you can to keep it safe and secure. Fortunately,keeping your business’s building secure doesn’t have to be complicated, so long as you know what areas of security to focus on. Here are three great ways to get started. 

Add Cameras 

If your business doesn’t involve retail sales, it may not occur to you to have security cameras on-site. After all, without anything to steal, the risk of break-in is greatly reduced, right? Actually, whether yours is a retail location or not, utilizing security cameras is a great way to increase the safety of your building. All buildings contain items of value that thieves would be tempted to try and break in and steal. 

Cameras provide a strong deterrent to thieves, understanding that their anonymity will be in jeopardy. Plus, if a crime does occur, cameras provide irrefutable evidence of what actually occurred, allowing you to prosecute the crimes quickly so you can resume business as usual, as soon as possible. 

Lights On

One of the easiest ways to keep your business secure is simply to leave some lights on,even when you leave for the night. Though this may seem like an unnecessary waste of electricity, leaving lights on can help deter crime by making the interior of your business more visible to those who pass by.

Adding strong exterior lighting, as well, ensures that there are no hidden areas for anyone to be taking part in illegal activity. Not to mention, extra lighting in and around your business allows those previously mentioned security cameras to perform better. 

Change Your Locks 

If other people besides you have access to a key for the exterior doors, it’s a good idea to change the locks on those doors, on occasion. After all, even if people turn in their keys when they leave the company, you never know if they have vengeful motives that have led them to make a copy of the key to be able to break in later.

Especially if an employee’s tenure ends under difficult circumstances, it’s important to consider changing your locks to ensure they can’t wreak havoc at a later time. Having the locks installed by a professional locksmithensures the job is done quickly and correctly, the first time. 

As with most things in life, properly securing your business requires you to strike a balance to ensure the best outcome. In this case, that balance is between costs and security procedures. You can fortify your business to become nearly impenetrable, however, you may find that you have no money left to actually run your business. By utilizing the above techniques, you’ll be able to minimize your costs and maintain a secure building.

Dixie Somers is a freelance writer and blogger for business, home, and family niches. Dixie lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and is the proud mother of three beautiful girls and wife to a wonderful husband.

Workplace Safety: Online and Physical

/ nancyrubin

Managing safety in the workplace — both in the office as well as online — is becoming a more complicated task by the day. Whether the concern is about hackers coming for your intellectual property, or process ownership during building maintenance, the security of your people is nothing to take for granted. Here are five things any company leader can do to make a greater effort in the name of safety.

Make Sure Everybody Understands What’Be Prepared’ Means

The impression that the world is unsafe and violent has only been amplified by popular media. We have, regrettably, let ourselves fall victim to a false narrative where our collective security is concerned. Nevertheless: it’s clear that when unfortunate events do occur in the world, they can happen just about anyplace.

What does “being prepared” look like for your workplace?If you ask different employees, will they tell you different things? Does everybody have a planned way out of the building or off your campus? It might sound too theoretical to justify spending time on it, but your company should have detailed contingency plans already drawn up for a variety of possible events — be it natural, as in extreme weather events, or something regrettably more man-made.

Perform Intermittent Online Security Audits

Since we’re talking about online and offline security, let’s talk about how business leaders can know, one way or another, whether their employees are practicing good security “hygiene” at work. There are two things you should be doing:

  1. Consider having an outside security company perform penetration testing for your company’s networks. They should be able to help you find any weak points that would-be criminals could exploit purposefully, or undisciplined employees could trigger accidentally.
  2. And when it comes to employees, have your IT team or that same third-party consultant perform or schedule fake phishing attempts for all of your company email addresses. Done correctly, the email will look like a plea for personal information, a reply, or for the user to click a link. Knowing how, and whether, your employees are interacting with emails like these, even fake ones,will tell you something about how at-risk your organization is.

Take Another Look at Your Building and the State of Its Maintenance

With the exception of companies that get started in attics,basements, and garages, most business visionaries take great pride in their immediate surroundings, including their business locations, their employees’accommodations and any environment in which a customer or client might find themselves.

We’re talking about two different things here. The first is curb appeal and “atmosphere.” Your workplace should present itself as a harmonious, well-considered space with tasteful and comfortable furnishings.Someplace employees can feel at home, in other words — since we know (workplaces with objectively pleasing aesthetics) tend to encourage creative free-thought,lower levels of aggression and heightened productivity overall.

But the second part of taking stock of your location and its amenities is a little more serious. It concerns the environment within your building, including its temperature during highs and lows and the quality of air your people are breathing all day. The phrase might sound alarmist, but”Sick Building Syndrome” is very real — and it generally results from poor air circulation in an environment already compromised by end-of-life HVAC systems, dirty duct work and noxious chemicals in furniture and building materials.

Implement BYOD Policies Responsibly

In another return to online safety, so-called “BYOD culture” is worth a look at as another potential threat vector in the well-being of your company and its employees. If the work you perform is conducive to it, you’ve likely already implemented, or plan to explore, BYOD policies. The benefits to company morale and productivity can be significant.When employees can do their work on familiar platforms and using hardware they’re comfortable with, it makes sense that they’d get more done.

The thing is, even if your workflows aren’t necessarily conducive to BYOD culture, your employees and guests might be bringing in smartwatches and other devices that aren’t as obvious. You might even have deployed these and other IoT devices yourself, as part of an internal wellness program. This itself can be a great influence on your organization’s collective health, and consequently your safety and productivity.

You’ve likely heard something about the several recent high-profile data breaches, including several, like Wanna Cry and Petya, which preyed specifically on unsecured and unsiloed IoT devices. Objects like these can be a boon in the workplace for many reasons, but the least you can do,safety-wise, is create a separate internal network for any connected devices you can’t vouch for 100 percent, including for employee BYOD programs as well as guests to your campus who might just want to use some free Wi-Fi.

Know Who’s Accountable and Have a Reporting Process in Place

This final point is a reminder about accountability in the workplace. We’re not talking about pointing fingers — we’re talking about”process ownership” and the idea that anything significant that requires doing deserves a specific appointed person to oversee it. If you do business in a climate where employee or customer safety depends on contacting snow removal companies quickly, you need a chain of command to get this and any other mission-critical safety or productivity concerns taken care of.

And that’s not all, either. When something unexpected happens, whether it’s an accident, damage to company property or infrastructure, bad-faith bookkeeping, or workplace harassment of some kind, your employees deserve some kind of accommodating, anonymizing reporting process for elevating their concerns to their managers or impartial third parties. They shouldn’t be left guessing who to talk to, or what to do if they’ve just been through something upsetting.

You’re going to find that your employees are only too happy to help you keep your company and its work areas safe and sound. But they need to know what’s expected of them and they need to know they have your ear when they have concerns of their own. As usual, it’s about communication.

Bio: Nathan Sykes is the editor of Finding an Outlet, a source for the latest in IT and business news and trends.

Is It Time to Grow Your Small Business?

/ nancyrubin

How long have you been running your small business?

Whether many years or only a short time, you want to do your best to have the right amount of funds in your bank account. Not doing so can make it quite difficult to keep your business healthy and moving forward.

With that in mind, is it time to grow your small business?

Where Should You Go for a Loan?

If you are leaning towards seeking a loan for your small business, where best to start?

Your first move should be going online to see the loan providers available to you as a small business owner.

Most offering small business loans are going to have websites. Some are also going to be present on social media sites. As a result, you can learn a fair amount of information about them in the process.

In the advantages to the web, check what options you have with an online business loan calculator.

With the calculator in hand, you are able to come up with what amount you would be eligible for. Also, figure out how much money you would be seeking in the process.

Second, get to know some of the loan providers out there.

  • Among the things you’d want to know:
  • How long have they been in business?
  • What kind of track record do they have?
  • Are they known for top-notch customer service?
  • How do they compare to their competitors?

In doing your research, you move closer to finding the right loan provider for your needs.

Growing When the Time is Right

Another important factor in this decision-making process is to know when the time to grow is.

With that being the case, you should look at several factors.

Among them:

1. Trends in your industry – One of the things you want to do is look at the trends in your industry. For example, are you seeing a lot of growth in your line of work with business, companies adding workers and more? If things appear to be pretty stagnant, this may then not be the best time to want to expand your business.

2. Your ability to stay on top of technology – Also take the time to look at the technology you are using. If you seem to be falling behind in the area of technology, is your competition taking advantage of this? If they are, it could be putting some distance between you and them in their favor. You may well decide you need to take out a small business loan to upgrade your technology needs.

3. Expanding in your area – Last, if you want to expand office space, do you have the means to do so now? You may be in a position where expanding is not an option. This can be due to limited growth possibilities where you are now located. It may mean taking out a loan and building a bigger office somewhere or expanding an office that is for sale.

No matter the reasons you contemplate to grow or not grow your small business, be sure to put thought into it.

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers small business topics on the web.

3 Reasons Your Company Will Need Legal Assistance

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Whether you’re just starting out in the business world or you’ve been running a successful company for a while; there is never a bad time to converse with an expert legal team and make sure you have them waiting in the wings. All entrepreneurs will need specialist legal assistance at some point during their careers. It is sensible to make all the arrangements ahead of time, so you don’t face any delays when it comes to getting the help you require in emergencies. If the lawyers already know the ins and outs of your operation; they will swing into action much faster than they otherwise would have done.

Patent and trademark disputes

It is vital that all entrepreneurs apply for suitable legal cover if they plan to launch a new brand and bring original product designs to the market. If you don’t have trademarks in place for your terms and patents for your concepts; there is a chance another company with more cash could come along and blow you out of the marketplace and cost you a fortune. With that in mind, even with the right protections in place; you could still face issues, and that is why you need a lawyer. If you discover another business infringes on your patents; you’ll want to put an end to that straight away.

Employee dismissal claims

If you employ other workers; there will come a time when you have a dispute with them that you cannot resolve. Perhaps the person was late for work over and over again, and so you decided to fire them. Like it or not, employees have rights, and you can’t always take away their source of income on a whim. So, that person might end up dragging your business through the courts in the hope of reinstating their position or making a compensation claim. If you do not have legal assistance; your operation will stagnate because you will have to take your eyes off the ball.

Road traffic accidents

As a business owner, you never know when you will get a call from a semi truck accident lawyer or someone else in that industry letting you know they plan to make a claim against your firm. You become especially vulnerable to issues like that if your company makes deliveries to customers. If you have drivers on the road all day long, it is only a matter of time before one of them makes a mistake and ends up causing a smash. Without the right legal representatives in your corner, there is a chance you will end up getting a raw deal in the courtroom.

Now you know why it’s so critical to find the right legal specialists to assist your company; it is time to search online, ask associates for recommendations, and sort the wheat from the chaff. Look for law firms that specialize in the business world, and try to select a firm that has lots of other clients in similar positions to you. If you do that; you shouldn’t have too many problems when it comes to making sure you don’t get ripped off in the courtroom.

How To Keep Customer And Client Data Secure

/ nancyrubin

Small business owners will have to collect a lot of client and customer data. If you don’t keep that information secure, there is a chance your company could get into trouble. There is also a chance you might develop an adverse reputation if your brand appears in the newspapers alongside a story about hackers who stole money from consumers bank accounts. So, use the advice from this post.

Use cloud storage services

If you take a moment to check out the infographic at the bottom of this page; you should learn more about data and how you will need to use it in the coming years. Whatever information you collect, make sure you choose the most secure storage solution. That is usually the cloud.

Encrypt all private details

Companies that collect customer names, addresses and bank account details will need to make sure they encrypt all that data the moment they receive it. Failure to do that could mean a hacker breaks into your system and steals everything. That is not something you want to happen.

Hire an IT support specialist

IT support experts know how to test your system for vulnerabilities and then provide some advice designed to counteract the issues. Make sure you hire a professional and use their services if you want to guarantee you’re not missing anything vital.

Use the info from this page to make sure you never fall victim to a hacking attack that will ruin the reputation of your brand. Also, take a look at the infographic to learn more about some of the challenges your business will face in the future.


Graphic by USC Online

The Security Checklist for Online Businesses

/ nancyrubin

Cybersecurity is not just a technology problem. The system is only as strong as its weakest link. To have an effective cybersecurity system, you need a comprehensive security policy for all employees that covers both online and offline behaviour, as well as leaders to instill a security-conscious culture.

One of the most recent scams is the “VP imposter scam,” which is a smaller version of CEO fraud. An employee receives an email from a VP. VP is in a customer meeting offsite, but he needs gift cards purchased immediately. The employee was told to immediately go buy the gift cards and send the VP the photos of the backs of gift cards before the meeting ends. Sounds urgent, so the employee complies. Unfortunately, the VP was an imposter, using a spoofed address from a “look-alike” domain. Once the card back photos were sent, their values are drained, and the imposter cuts contact. The victim employee eventually realized he was scammed when VP didn’t reimburse, triggering an IT investigation.

Technology will not solve this issue, because this is not something a spam or other email filter will catch. This is a targeted phishing message. But a security policy can stop this, and your company needs both to function properly.

What Makes a Good Security Policy?

There are several things that make a good security policy:

  • Make everyone understand the stakes – anyone can be compromised, from CEO on down to the lowliest grunt, including the vendors. A reported booking.com hack was actually phishing messages that compromised partner’s own backend.
  • Define the chain of command clearly – a VP should not be able to order a random employee around, but only his/her direct staff. Attempt to bypass such must be verified.
  • Define clear areas of control for each department – this can range from “regular users should not be able to install new programs, only IT” to “only CFO can edit transactions.”
  • Define risk in each job, and how to manage that risk – different jobs have different risk levels, and that determines how much training and how much technology is needed to manage that risk.
  • Plan for worst-case before it happens – If you are penetrated by a scammer, how do you proceed? This had to be planned properly ahead of time.

For any organization or individual, it is extremely important to keep your data secure from all kinds of different threats, ranging from hackers stealing your passwords to various different forms of viruses that are used to steal copies of your financial information or forcibly display a wide variety of different popups or advertisements or to open specific programs or web pages independently of any form of user input.

One of the most obvious threats that are most neglected is that some people use the most basic and rudimentary forms of security software that only do the most basic things. The more concerning part of this is the fact that many people do not even bother to update their security software to modern standards and just let the software do its job in the background. However, the problem with them doing this lies in the fact that they are neglecting to update their security software in favour of just using the default version without updates which can lead them to be unable to defend against more modern threats as their security software becomes more and more outdated. Let cyber security managed for you by professionals.

In addition to the use of outdated security software, some people have been known to use a form of data transmission that did an extremely poor job of correctly encrypting their data which left the data in question open to be discovered and stolen by almost any hacker who could gain access to that data stream.

This access control, or authorization, limits certain visitors access to certain areas of the website through security checks. Sometimes, however, access control can be broken, granting access to users who do not have clearance to areas of your website containing sensitive information. If this has ever happened with your website, you know the stress and headache it can cause and have wondered how you can better protect yourself. Lucky for you, we’re here to help.

Why Does Broken Access Control Happen?

The first thing we will want to look at when it comes to resolving broken access control is to determine what causes it in the first place. The first place where developers may fail is in an underestimation in what it takes to implement access control that is reliable. To brake access control, all that a hacker needs to do is simply figure out the access control scheme in order to find a way around it. This is often done by a simple request for access to areas of the website that are not permitted. The hacker will then find a flaw in the access control scheme in order to break it. Once they are in, the attacker is able to do a lot of damage such as deleting content or even taking control of your website. As you can see, the effects of broken access control can be detrimental, and it cannot be over-stressing the importance of knowing the best way to resolve broken access control.

How Can I be Sure I am Protected?

So how can you be sure you are protected? First and foremost, you will want to evaluate the access control requirements for your application and make sure that it is well documented in your policy. This policy should contain details such as who has access and what they should be able to see on your website. You will then want to perform numerous tests from multiple accounts to be sure it cannot be bypassed.

Conclusion

Finally, it is always wise to keep an eye out for social engineering techniques being used to threaten your security. These threats are a little less obvious than most, but they are another thing to keep an eye on. These methods are far less technical and more personal as it mostly involves manipulating people into sharing their personal data rather than hacking your systems.