Five Tips for Avoiding a Security Breach this Holiday Season

With the holiday season quickly approaching, many people are swiping their credit cards at local retailers. The holiday season has recently been a popular time for data breaches. Experiencing a data breach that takes your customer?s confidential information can be disastrous to a business. It can cause your customers to lose trust, return their orders, and never shop at your business again. These tips will ensure that you are protected this busy holiday season.

Prepare with your IT consulting team
Proper security when it comes to information technology requires a dedicated team that knows what they are doing. Make sure you are working closely with your IT consulting team on implementing the best security measures for the next couple of months. Ask questions like, what will they do to improve security? If there is a data breach, how will they handle it? How will they encourage trust of customers this holiday shopping season? Your IT support team is an extremely important part of your security this season.

Upgrade all of your security measures
Because technology is constantly changing, you can easily have outdated managed IT services. Having IT programs that are even a couple of years old can put you at risk for an expensive security breach. Approximately 20% of all small businesses will be hacked within one year. Many of these hacks will be caused by outdated IT security measures. Work with your IT consulting team on upgrading your IT equipment, both in the main office and also in any physical location.

Increase employee security
With a technologically backed industry today, many employees are moving to a remote setting. Larger companies offer the greatest chance to work remotely with about 69% allowing remote workstations and 31% keeping their employees all in house. While there are many benefits to remote work settings, it can also open up the door for decreased security. If you are going to offer remote work possibilities to your employees, make sure you are doing so in a secure way. Your IT outsourcing team can help you set up the necessary safety measures.

Have an emergency plan in place
The only thing worse than going through a security breach is not handling it properly. If a security breach is identified, it will likely be picked up by the media. You will have numerous media outlets asking for detailed information. You will have an array of customers calling, asking what you are going to do to protect their information. Instead of scrambling once it happens, make sure you have an emergency plan in place ahead of time. Work with your IT consulting team on an emergency plan. Unfortunately, you cannot completely prevent the possibility of a security breach. But, you can minimize the effects with a solid emergency plan in place.

Back up all of your information
In addition to security breaches putting your customer?s confidential information out there, they can also erase important business information. It is important to make sure that your businesses information is securely backed up. Approximately 47% of data losses were due to end users deleting information, 17% were using overwriting data, and 13% were because hackers deleted information. There is some information that cannot be replaced.

Security breaches are a common occurrence in today?s technological times. They are especially common during busy shopping seasons, like the upcoming holiday season. Make sure your business is secure and properly protected. Also, make sure your business has a solid emergency plan in place, in the event that a security breach does happen.