Going through a period of growth? Growth can be an exciting period to go through for any business. Business growth can help you reach new levels of success, compete at a higher level, attract more customers, and make more money. While growth is positive and should always be embraced, you must consider some of the challenges. In 2023, one of the biggest challenges of growth is cybersecurity. Cybercrime is rife with attackers looking to pounce on any vulnerabilities, so you need to make sure that cybersecurity is considered at every stage during growth periods. Here are a few tips that should help.
Conduct A Risk Assessment
A logical place to start is to conduct a risk assessment. You need to consider your growth plans and evaluate what the potential cybersecurity risks are with these plans. It will depend on how you are growing your business, but growth can often create new vulnerabilities that need to be considered. By highlighting the potential issues, you are able to determine what steps need to be taken to ensure security at all times during growth periods.
Back-Up All Important Data
It is also important to back up all of your important data externally. A lot can go wrong when growing a business, whether this is data loss, damage, or theft. By backing up data, you will always have another version available. This can also provide important peace of mind when growing your business.
Use Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management
Cloud infrastructures are ideal for growth because they are scalable. While cloud infrastructures are perfect for growing businesses, you will find that there can be security concerns when it comes to access. Cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM) allows you to control who is able to gain access to the infrastructure and the important resources and data within. CIEM can protect your system against hackers and help your organization overcome cloud computing security vulnerabilities.
Secure The Network
You also want to make sure that you secure the network when growing your business to protect against outside threats. You can do this by setting up a firewall to monitor traffic and with intrusion detection systems (IDS). If you have remote workers, it is important that they use a VPN if connecting to public Wi-Fi to protect important data.
Educate Employees
Finally, you need to ensure that you educate your employees on best practices and how they can carry out their work safely. Growing a business often requires bringing in new staff, so you want to make sure that everyone knows how to stay safe and protect important data. Most attacks result from human error, so cybersecurity training is key for preventing this.
Growing a business can be an exciting time. Still, you also need to consider cybersecurity every step of the way, Growing a business and making changes can bring new vulnerabilities during a time when cybercrime is rife. Hence, you need to make sure that you prioritize cybersecurity during periods of growth.
