Everything Your Start Up Needs to Know About Web Security

By Patrick Vernon−

While recent data breaches and hacking incidents have targeted multinational corporations, this doesn’t mean to say your start-up can ignore web security. In many respects, you need to be even more vigilant, as small businesses don’t exactly have as much time or money as bigger organisations to bolster security.

What’s more, 99.9 per cent of the 5.4 million private sector businesses in the UK were SMEs at the start of 2015, accounting for 47 per cent of private sector turnover. This represents an incredibly lucrative opportunity for cyber criminals looking to access sensitive or confidential information over the Internet. So, to protect data and documentation from online offenders, here is everything your start-up needs to know about web security.

Secure servers

Every website is hosted on a server, which itself will have application software and an operating system that hackers can target. Although most start-ups will look for the most cost-effective hosting option available, it is far more beneficial to choose a more secure solution, such as 100TB Dedicated Servers.

Featuring enterprise grade hardware firewalls, unlimited SSL certificates as well as physical and biometric data centre security layers, you can rest assured that your website will be impenetrable to attack.

Up to date software

Internet security software such as antivirus and firewall programs can prevent outsiders from infecting your computers in order to access data. However, it is imperative that you download and install software updates as soon as they are available.

Malware and other threats are always evolving to take advantage of vulnerabilities in software. Thankfully, patches and fixes are constantly being developed as well to repair these weaknesses.

Access to information

By limiting the number of staff with access to your start-up’s financial information and the personal details of customers, cyber criminals will find it much harder to compromise the data.

For those with access, make sure you have a stringent password policy. Passwords should be changed regularly and contain a combination of alpha and numeric characters that do not resemble words.

Employee training

Although it is common sense to never open unknown email attachments or click unknown website links, some employees may still make this mistake. Therefore, one of the best ways to enhance web security is to simply educate your workforce about the threats that exist.

Along with establishing rules of behaviour when handling and protecting information, you may also want to implement penalties for members of staff that violate company cyber security policies.

Data back-ups

Should the worst-case scenario occur and you suffer from a cyber attack, you will need to recover any lost information as soon as possible. This means backing-up your data on a regularly basis, which can be done automatically and stored offsite or in the cloud.

Back-ups should include everything from customer databases and human resource files to financial statements and reports. This plan of action is crucial when it comes to disaster recovery too.

If you believe that your start-up isn’t at risk from cybercrime then think again. Web security should be one of your main priorities, as hackers could target your obvious weaknesses before moving on to more high-profile organizations.

Patrick Vernon is a freelance writer, with experience writing for a range of magazines and websites, researching various topics in order to offer useful info and content to the public.