As a small or medium-sized business, you’re competing on a dynamic digital landscape with larger organizations, as well as being prey to the same nefarious threat actors that are looking to breach your security.

Many SMBs don’t think they’re on the radar of bad actors and hackers, which makes them prone to these common security mistakes.

Inadequate identity management and authentication

We all know your password shouldn’t be “password” or “12345678,” but weak passwords continue to put organizations at risk. It’s important to remind employees to create strong and unique passwords, as well as remind them that sharing passwords or writing them down where they can be seen weakens the overall security of the business.

In addition to passwords, two-factor authentication (2FA) adds another level of security that’s essential for protecting systems from threat actors, as they only need to infiltrate one user account to gain a foothold in your network.

Not training your employees

Weak passwords tend to be a symptom of poor security hygiene that is a result of poor or non-existent security training as human error is often the cause of many data breaches. Regular employee security training can prevent incidents by making your staff more aware of the dangers of weak passwords, phishing scams and other social engineering that threat actors use to gain access to networks or disable IT infrastructure.

A missing incident response plan

It’s not a matter if a data breach occurs – either due to bad actors or natural disasters – it’s a matter when. You should be ready for the worse with an incident response plan that includes data recovery in case of any disaster. Being ready for the worse will limit financial losses, damages to your reputation, litigation, and downtime. Your incident response plan should be bolstered by a data backup plan so that any mission-critical data is quickly and easily recoverable in case of any disruption.

Not updating security software

Your security software is only as good as its latest update, so you if want to protect yourself from the latest threats, you need to regularly apply patches and updates. This habit must go beyond your security tools – it’s essential that you keep your operating systems and other business applications up to date, as well as hardware firmware, as this closes potential to doors to threat actors by applying bug fixes, closing security holes and improving their overall performance and reliability.

Acting like you’re not a target

Don’t assume bad actors are only attacking big businesses – your data and your infrastructure can be just as valuable. Hackers view SMBs as easy targets because they assume you don’t have adequate cybersecurity, and even if they don’t want your data, they can use you as launch pad to attack other organizations, including your partners, customers and suppliers.

Even as you’re at risk of the same threats as larger organizations, as an SMB you have access to the same tools to protect the organization. If you find yourself making one of the above mistakes, or simply want to bolster your security posture, a managed security services provider can help you understand where you’re at and get you to where you want to be.