Why Cybercriminals are targeting Small Businesses

2. Why Cybercriminals are targeting small businesses In today’s scenario, cyber crimes are the biggest thread all over the world. From top level software companies to small level business everyone is facing this problem. Programmers try to develop many security or firewalls but still many websites get hacked every year. Although cyber criminals target on every level, their focus is small level business nowadays. There is a news which comes in the newspaper recently that professional web development company facing major problem with their websites.so we have lots of examples where many companies facing the same problem and not able to find any solution for this.

3. What are cyber criminals?WHAT are cyber criminals ? Cybercriminals works is a gang of tech savvy, well-funded, organized people, who are very clever in their work. These people only work for money. They can steal sensitive information, credit cards numbers, passwords, corporate data etc. they can either blackmail you for money, hacked your account or sell your information to the bulk on the internet. Cybercriminals work in two ways. The first type of attempt by the cyber criminals is when they take benefits of software vulnerabilities to install malware. There are various examples we find in our daily life where we got different messages from malicious websites that install malware in our system. The second type of cyber hacking is called social engineering. In these attempts, hackers try to convince a user to open a link and these links lead a user to forget page where they asked username or password. This type of hacking is known as “phishing”. Even cyber criminals give you attractive schemes and convince a user to send money to their account.

4. Why they are targeting small businesses ? The question which occurs in mind why cyber criminal targeting small businesses when they can frauds with big companies and get more money? The answer is simple small businesses are easy to hack because of fewer securities. These small level companies do not focus have the proper defense because of less awareness about security purposes. They only focus on production or development. They forget security is equally important for an organization to grow. On the other hand, bigger organization have tighter security. These companies are not “low hanging fruit” for hackers. They must put lots of efforts and still they have high chances to get caught. So nowadays small level businesses are an appalling target for all the hackers as they don’t have any security solutions and information infrastructure. So, they cannot find out frauds and penetration. After knowing all the causes of hacking, let's discuss how small level businesses can protect their business from cyber criminals so their website or business details would not be hacked.

5. Always create a unique and strong password:-  This is the basic and most important step which everyone should take. You should not use those passwords which are easy to guess for example your name, loved one’s name, company name etc. In fact, if you want to increase security and privacy then you should keep changing your passwords within one month. Always try to make unique passwords from the combination of uppercase and lowercase letter, numeric value, and alphanumeric values.

6. Use a Separate computer for banking transactions:-  This is one of the easiest ways to save your business from the largest frauds. The entrepreneur or business owner should always use a dedicated computer for all the transaction and financial accounts. There are various links which come through email, social media or web surfing should not be open on that computer. Always review your banking transaction on daily basis and do not share sensitive information with anyone.

7. Use card verification value(cvv) for customers  Nowadays credit or debit cards are used for the transaction. Every card has card verification value which is on the back side of a card. This code can prevent you from many transaction hacks. You will get right details about the person before and then he can finally purchase your product or service. If you want more security then you can provide OTP (one-time password) on your customer’s mobile or system. So, you can cross verify the customer and save your company from a fraudulent buy.

8. Don't use public Wifi:- If you are a business holder than always use your private network for internet users. Sometimes when we are traveling somewhere for a meeting or anything we have used public WIFI network.it can be harmful to your business. Public internet connections could leak sensitive information or data of your business because some other person is also using the same network. So, no matter what, if you are going for official purpose, always use your private network.

9. Train your employees:- This is the last but most important thing which every business owner must do. The administration educates their staff with basic security measures so that they always get aware about the stuff. Every security plan needs active participation so every owner trains their employees about data security and accuracy. If you follow these security measures, you can save your business from cyber criminals.