Unfortunately, many businesses face threats that didn’t exist only ten to twenty years ago. These aren’t threats from competitors or the market. They are threats that arrive from the fact that using computer systems and connecting to the internet is a required part of doing business these days. However, if you take the correct precautions, many of these threats can be averted. Below are a few different cyber threats your company should look out for in 2016.
Ransomware
One new type of malware you should be aware of in 2016 is ransomware. As the name suggests, ransomware is a kind of malware designed to take a company’s data or computer systems hostage with the goal of extracting a monetary ransom from that company. The ransom is typically demanded in the form of Bitcoin to prevent tracking by the authorities. Make sure your IT department plans for the possibility of a ransomware attack.
Server Failure
Although catastrophic server failure is not a new digital threat, it is still one of the most often encountered problems by companies. To protect against server failure, make sure your server hardware is kept in very cool room with temperature control and replaced as needed. To protect your data, you should also make sure backups are created including through the use of third party cloud hosting. Even something as simple as a lightning strike can permanently destroy data stored on server hardware.
Legal Compliance
Not all digital threats are the result of malicious actions by outsiders. Many of them are in fact due to the incompetence of the people working within companies. You must be very careful with how you deal with customer personal data in particular. If you aren’t, you could open yourself up to legal threats. This is certainly the case in the healthcare industry after new privacy protection laws like HIPAA were enacted by the federal government. Health Data Archiver is a software suite that can help insure you follow HIPAA when dealing with patient information.
In-Store Digital Credit Card Threat
Today, some customers have their credit card information stolen not from a company’s servers but from inside the actual store through the use of Wi-Fi enabled tools during customer checkout processes. Make sure your in-store digital security is updated to protect against this threat.
Make sure you protect against these and all other digital threats. Not doing so can be disastrous. It can open your company up to theft, lawsuits, bad press and the loss of your competitive advantages.
