Keep your small business safe: 10 tips

Identity theft – and the hackers responsible for it – is a serious problem these days. About 10 million people a year are victims of identity theft, according to the Federal Trade Commission. But some criminals can’t leave well enough alone; they try to assume the identity of an entire company. Site offers 10 tips for increasing security.1. Set up your defenses. Do you have adequate firewalls and antivirus software to protect you from hackers who could steal your customers and company identity? 2. Stay abreast of the threat. A recent phishing scam in Brazil caused Web browsers to land on criminal sites that looked identical to well-known bank sites. 3. Encrypt everything. Any sensitive data, or information that might help an ID thief or hacker, should be aggressively encrypted.4. Get help from your employees. Human error, or lack of attention to detail, is one of the biggest risks to a company’s security.5. Don’t store credit card numbers.“Never, never, never,”6. Buy a shredder – and use it. Documents with confidential information can fall into the wrong hands when they aren’t properly disposed 7. Mind your mobile devices. “A laptop computer is stolen approximately every 53 seconds and only three percent are ever recovered,8. Run your updates. Hackers are constantly discovering and exploiting new vulnerabilities in computer operating systems and networks. [Setup Microsoft LIVE ONECARE to run automatically!!]9. Research your Internet service provider. Unfortunately, the company providing your business with Internet access can offer easy access to your private information. [I will add that Country Wide Empoyees released all my private data too!!]10. Know what to do when it happens. Have a security compliance plan in place

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