There’s a lot to security that isn’t necessarily “cyber.” It’s not all hackers or complex network attacks.
Alongside traditional cyberattacks that deploy malware or exploit known software vulnerabilities, there are also less technical—yet equally devastating—forms of theft.
This doesn’t mean that well-known cybersecurity best practices don’t apply. Every small business owner should still use unique passwords for every account, turn on multi-factor authentication, keep their software and operating systems updated, and run always-on cybersecurity software.
But for the everyday small business owner juggling dozens of accounts, networks, devices, and the reams of data being created, stored, and shared across text messages, emails, and online portals, this advice is for you.
For National Small Business Week in the US, here are three ways to protect your business that require little technical prowess.
Don’t use your Social Security Number as your tax ID
In the US, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows small business owners to use their personal Social Security Number (SSN) as the Federal Tax ID. It’s a small grace meant to simplify annual record-keeping for sole proprietors and owner-employees, but for cybercriminals, it’s a basic oversight they’d like every small business to make.
Using your Social Security Number as your Federal Tax ID means putting your Social Security Number in an ever-increasing number of hands. That’s because small business taxes are different from taxes for everyday salaried employees.
Whenever a small business takes on a new client or a contractor who pays for services costing at least $600, that small business has to share and receive what is called a W-9 form. This exact form isn’t filed with the IRS, but it is used to track payments for later filings.
What’s more important, though, is that this form asks for an owner’s name, address, and tax ID number.
This means that as a small business grows, its vulnerability to identity theft increases in tandem. Every W-9 filed that uses an owner’s SSN as their tax ID number is another opportunity for that SSN to be stolen. After just one year of operation, a small business owner’s SSN could end up in the inboxes, filing cabinets, and cloud drives of a dozen different people and companies.
This is exactly what cybercriminals want.
Equipped with a W-9 form about your business, a cybercriminal could impersonate you or your business. They could open a business credit line, file fraudulent returns that claim your small business income, or scam your clients.
How to stay safe:
Apply for a free Employer Identification Number (EIN) at IRS.gov. It’s quick to do and it separates your business tax identity from your personal tax identity. After that, put the EIN on W-9s, 1099s, and all other business paperwork instead of your SSN.
Keep your personal cloud storage personal
The most popular cloud storage for most small business owners is the cloud storage they already have—their personal Google Drive or iCloud.
Built to make memory archival as easy as possible, these tools can automatically back up and secure nearly every single moment that happens through your device, from the vacation photos you snapped last summer, to your kid’s first steps recorded on video, to the texts you sent, the notes you made, and the calendar appointments you managed.
But this type of automatic archival poses a threat to any non-personal information that you view, send, markup, or sign when using your personal smartphone. Suddenly, and often without thinking about it, your cloud storage has backups of signed contracts, tax returns, client intake forms, invoices, business financial statements, and photos of physical paperwork.
Above, we warned about using your SSN as your tax ID because it creates a risk if anyone in your business network is breached. But storing client information in your personal cloud storage creates a different problem: it puts that risk directly on you.
Compounding the threat here is the fact that many personal cloud storage accounts are shared with family members. More people accessing the same account means more exposure and more chances for mistakes, even if everyone has good intentions.
How to stay safe:
Go through the cloud backup settings on both your phone and your computer and manage what data is being synced. Move sensitive business files to a dedicated business storage account with proper access controls, sharing permissions, and audit logs—something that can tell you who opened a file and when.
If anything business-related has to live in a personal cloud account, give that account a strong, unique password, turn on multi-factor authentication, and don’t share access with anyone who isn’t you.
Protect device and account access in the home
Devices have a funny way of moving around. Your smartphone goes into your spouse’s hands as they override your music choices in the car. Your tablet ends most nights in your kid’s bedroom as they watch TV. And your laptop gets tugged around from couch to counter to kitchen table—each time fully opened and logged in, a portal to the web.
You trust everyone in your home to act safely online, but the path to online safety is full of mistakes.
A single errant click on a fake ad, a malicious search result, or a disguised download is all it takes to compromise your device today, along with all your small business records.
Aside from the threat of malware, someone using your device could make purchases, accidentally delete files, and overwrite important documents.
Remember, an “insider threat” doesn’t need to be malicious to cause damage—they just need to be inside your network (which in this, is your home).
How to stay safe:
Treat your devices that you use for work as work devices. That means requiring a passcode or password for device entry, along with multi-factor authentication for important business accounts.
Also, to ensure that any wrong click doesn’t lead to a malicious PDF download or a wayward malware installation, use always-on antimalware protection software, like Malwarebytes for Teams.
Secure your success
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with modern cybersecurity advice. Every week there are new vulnerabilities to patch, emerging scams to avoid, and novel viruses and pieces of malware that can seemingly take over your device, your data, and your business.
Thankfully, there are important steps you can take today that don’t require you to fiddle with internal settings or take a class on network engineering. Some of the most effective protections are simple: Limit how widely you share sensitive information, keep business and personal data separate, and control who can access your devices.
For everything else, try Malwarebytes for Teams to receive 24/7, always-on antimalware protection to shut out viruses, block malware attacks, and keep hackers out of your business.
Entrar
