Women On the Net: Marketing to a New Vision
Donna's Promo Talk Talks Promos

Hack Attack

by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief Social Media Strategist at xynoMedia Technology

Quite some time ago I read a startling statistic:

The FBI and Computer Security Institute conducted a survey which revealed that only 20% of businesses reported computer intrusions to legal authorities.

The other 80% kept the episodes quiet to maintain a solid public image.  Wow. Thanks for not 'sounding the alarm' guys.

My mother has a saying that I believe I've shared before: "Locks are made for honest people."

And, it's so true. If someone is hell bent on taking something from you, they're going to take it. Heck, even the government gets hacked. (Shhhhh!)

That doesn't mean you should make it easy for them. Any good thief or miscreant will tell you if they have to work too hard, they'll just move onto an easier mark.

Hacking What you might not know is hackers use small businesses - like yours - as target practice.

Times have changed.  Online threats are completely different than what they were just two years ago. It used to be that viruses, worms, trojans, etc. were created to cause mischief, now they are deployed and cultivated to make money.  Yep, that's right, hacking is a business.

People have changed. One disgruntled employee - or virtual assistant - can poke holes in whatever security structure you've set up for your business. The best bet is to only give people access to what they need, if someone doesn't need long-term access make sure access is only granted temporarily and change passwords frequently.  It might be easier for you to make all your passwords the same, but it presents a huge liability for you.

Credit card companies have changed. They're not playing around with fraud anymore. It's too costly for everyone involved. Let's say you're a coach and you're storing your client's credit card information to bill them ever month. If that information gets stolen and used inappropriately, some major credit card companies can sue your company for up to $50,000 per incident and up to $10,000 per fraudulent use of the card - per account. Fines can easily run into the hundreds of thousands if you're storing 10 or more credit cards. Ouch! The best bet is to bill your clients on a monthly basis or let a guaranteed secure merchant processing company do it for you. If they are hacked, and you're sued, at least you have someone you can sue to offset your liabilities.

And, for crying out loud, if something does happen, swallow your pride and tell someone.

Bottomline: Getting hacked doesn't mean you were irresponsible or that you 'asked for it'. Help other businesses defend themselves by sharing as much as you can about the attack:

  • how the perps got in
  • what they took/messed up and
  • what you're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The comments to this entry are closed.