The negative impacts of breached website security are immense no matter the size of a business. This is because on average it costs a company over $1.7 million to address the damages from a cyber attack. This could quickly shutter the doors of a small to medium
sized business within as little as a few weeks’ time. Even if you run a small business and think you may not have the budget to secure your website, here are a few reasons why tech safety for your website is so essential for your business’s operations.
One of the top digital safety tips for businesses is to protect your customer’s information first. Today, most people depend on websites for the various products and services they use on a daily basis. Customers may provide you with their names, credit card information, dates of birth and even their full social security numbers. This represents a goldmine for hackers with ill intentions who may want to steal this sensitive information. Do not give criminals this opportunity. Protect their information, encrypt it before it is sent anywhere and take internal measures so that your employees understand the importance of safeguarding this private information.
Securing your website is also a matter of protecting your physical equipment as well. This is because not only can hackers steal your customer’s information but they can install viruses on your website that could impact your physical machines. As a business owner you recognize the investment that it takes to secure expensive equipment for running your business. Now imagine the high costs of having viruses that cripple your systems and then having to hire someone to remove the viruses from your machines or even worse having to replace them altogether because the damage is irreversible.
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Securing your website is also crucial for the longevity of your business because a hack could impact your reputation. There could be no worse feeling than having negative publicity in the press due to a major security breach on your website. Today, there is no shortage of news coverage on corporate websites that get hacked all of the time and such negative publicity only hampers a brand’s growth. Avoid this situation by protecting your website so that the public continues to view you as a trusted name in your industry.
#4 Protects Your Proprietary Information
Furthermore, many businesses create proprietary information, applications and systems that are not available for the general public. An uncanny hacker could see an unprotected website as a goldmine to infiltrate your company’s operations. This could cost you money if your trade secrets are exposed. Hackers could even damage the important information on your website resulting in you having to start from the ground up. This is why all companies should make backing up a website a priority. Even a website’s cloud services can be exposed to hacking. Therefore, prevent this from happening by properly securing your website.
A hack can also lead to massive amounts of downtime and loss of productivity. This translates into sales that you could be missing out on. Any business owner understands the importance of continuous sales to ensure the viability of your business. In short, unprotected websites threaten not only the security of the company, but its very existence since loss of too many sales could result in the business having to close its doors for good.
On the upside, if you take the necessary steps to protect your website you can stay two steps ahead of the competition. This is because website security significantly lessens your risk of exposure while your competitors remain exposed to online threats. Websites get attacked all the time—make sure yours is not one of them.
Lastly, running a business is hard enough without the constant worry of a cyber-attack. While you may not be able to beat all the bad guys you can certainly deter them from attacking your company by putting protections in place that stop them in their tracks. Have peace of mind in knowing your website is properly secured and that you are putting added measures in place to protect what you have built. You should even go as far a putting a standard policy in place so that everyone in the organization understands just how essential website security is for the business.
So, while cyber criminals always pose a threat to businesses you can decrease the odds of this happening to you by putting proactive measures in place to secure your online presence. Online security for your website is important. Lessen your vulnerabilities by taking a proactive approach to securing your company today.
