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It is a rare business owner who does not need to use a computer, at least for basic tasks such as emailing, accounting and the like. There are a few things you need to be aware of when securing your data and protecting yourself against data loss.
Backups
I cannot emphasise this one too strongly. DON’T FORGET YOUR BACKUPS! Disaster can strike in the form of a hard drive failure, a power surge or a virus attack, and you will have lost contacts, emails, documents and other important business data. There are many good backup programs available to manage this for you. Make sure you have a backup policy in your business, and follow it religiously. Also make sure you know how to restore the data. A recommended plan is:
Daily backups: incremental backup of the work done through the day, onto CD or DVD.
Weekly backups: full backup of your data, onto CD or DVD and either kept off site, or stored on an online backup system. A suggestion for off site backups is to have a trusted employee take the disk home. This will protect you in case of theft or fire, as well as hardware failure.
Passwords
Just think how many sites you visit that you need to enter a username and password. From online forums to online banking, from newsletter subscriptions to dealings with Government authorities. With so many sign ons to remember we could perhaps be forgiven for using the same passwords over and over again, or for writing them down in a notebook.
For sites such as forums and discussion groups, this isn’t such an issue, but when we’re talking about banking, shopping sites and other dealings where our identities or credit card informationcould be compromised, a far more rigorous process needs to be followed when deciding on a password. Some tips for setting a strong password:
- don’t make it too short – longer passwords are harder for hackers to guess
- don’t use your name, your kids’ names, or the name of your favourite celebrity or literary character
- stay away from words which can be found in the dictionary – there are password cracking programs which could guess these
- never use birthdays, anniversaries, phone numbers or social security numbers as part of your password
- combine upper and lower case letters with numbers or special characters. One method I’ve heard of which is to think of the initial lettesr of your favourite (multi word) song title, add two letters indicating the site you’re accessing (eg “tw” for Twitter, “Fb” for Facebook), followed by a number (eg 2009). This way you will at least have some hope of remembering your password while making it impossible for a hacker to guess.
There are some good password manager programs which store all your passwords for you – but they are only as good as the password you use to sign in to them!
Wireless
If you’re running a wireless network, there are a few things you can do to your router settings to make it more secure.
- change the administrator password on your router – follow the instructions provided with your wireless router to do this
- choose the maximum encryption possible in your router settings
- change the default name for your SSID - this is your wireless network ID
- disable broadcasting of your SSID – this means that your network is not visible to outsiders
- give each device on your network a unique, static IP address (for Windows users, this can be done in your Control Panel)
- enable firewalls on all devices as well as the router
Phishing
Phishing is the process where hackers can fraudulently obtain sensitive personal information by setting up websites which look very similar to trustworthy sites. Emails claiming to be from a bank or similar trusted organisation direct the user to a website which is almost identical to the original. Users are then requested to enter login and password details and these are recorded for later fraudulent use. Some phishing websites are almost impossible to distinguish from the original, which makes this such a high risk to your security.
Some basic tips to avoid being caught out:
- do not trust emails requesting personal information – banks do not communicate with their clientele in this way
- if in doubt, go to the bank’s website by typing their address in and double check
- never fill out forms sent by email
- ensure you’re using a secure website if you are entering credit card information. Check the web address in your browser’s address bar – a secure site will be prefixed by “https://”
- report any suspicious looking email to the financial institution concerned so they can issue a general warning to its customers
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