Protect What You Built: A Safety Check for Small Business Owners
It takes years to build a customer list, a reputation, and a little cash in the bank. It can take one email to lose them.
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and for small business owners the threat is rarely dramatic. It looks ordinary: an invoice from a vendor you know asking you to send payment to a new account, a text that says your bank login is locked, a message from someone who sounds like your supplier. Small businesses are targeted because they move fast and often run without an IT department.
Four habits that close most of the door.
Turn on multi-factor authentication for email, banking, payroll and your point-of-sale system. A stolen password is far less useful when a second step is required.
Verify any change in payment details by phone, using a number you already have on file, not the one in the message. This one habit stops most invoice fraud.
Use strong, unique passwords, stored in a password manager, so one breach does not open every account you own.
Update software and back up your records. Updates close known holes. A recent backup means a ransomware demand is a bad day, not the end of the business.
Teach the same habits to anyone who touches your accounts, including family members who help out. Safety is a team practice.
Protecting a business is also about the basics that keep it standing: clean books, the right registrations, and access to capital that does not come with predatory terms. The Urban League Entrepreneurship Center works with owners on all of it, through training, business coaching, technical assistance and resource navigation.
Comments