Cybersecurity for Small Business

  Passwords simply aren't secure enough! Passwords are a major part of our lives, and we all have far more of them than we care to think about. They are the keys to our “electronic” locks.  The trouble is, our keys are so easy to copy or guess, we might as well not have the locks!  U nfortunately, there isn't any continuity regarding criteria for passwords from one site to the next. Many require an uppercase character or a lowercase character or must have a number or must have a special character AND cannot be a password you have chosen in the past 45 years! As a result of having so many sites where we need passwords, we try to make it easy for us to remember them.  However, if it’s easy for us to remember, it’s easy for the bad guys to guess.  Did you know that the most common passwords are:  Password, Password123, admin, welcome, letmein, QWERTY, QWERTY1234, 123456 and 123123? Not smart! The trick is to come up with a way that is easy to remember your password and make it har

As small business owners, we wear many hats in order to grow and protect our businesses.  In today’s Digital Age, we must wear one more; we are the Protector of our business from the threat of Cyber Intrusion, Data Theft, and Financial Embezzlement. But how can we protect our business when big businesses with deep pockets can barely protect themselves?  We read practically every week another well-known large corporation admit they were “hacked” and millions of customer records have become compromised.  Closer to home, we hear how thousands surrender to “digital pirates” via RANSOMware, where your PC and data are held at ransom by data encryption until you pay the bounty. Keep your head up!  There are things we can do to protect our businesses, and these proactive defenses won’t break the bank. First, EDUCATE yourself and your employees who have access to business computers.  Passwords should be at least fourteen characters long, never shared and never written down near the PC.  When re