Protecting your small business

When it comes to the security of your customer's information, you need to be extremely careful. If a hacker can get into your web site and steal their information, you risk losing your business. There are other things you need to protect with your small business like your assets such as equipment, data files, and online information. Here are some tips to help you protect your small business.

Hire the right people. Almost all office break-ins or identity theft crimes are committed by a person that has worked for the company. It is important to thoroughly screen each of your applicants and truly get to know them (and their background) before you hire them to work. This same rule applies when you need to hire another company to come in and service your equipment or work on your computers. The IT professional or repairman must be trustworthy. Typically you can find this information out by knowing the company they work for and some of the other businesses they have dealt with in the past.

If you are having someone come in to work on your computers, make sure you have some basic information written down for them. Obtain the warranty, router settings, desktop network settings, application preferences, software products keys, all the passwords that protect the computers. This information will help them if they need to re-boost a computer and they need to re-load software and re-configure the settings to the computer. Don't voluntarily give out this information (especially the passwords) unless they specifically ask for it.

It is important to protect your data files. Always purchase additional storage for your system. You can purchase an offsite storage until or online backup system. The online backup systems are extremely convenient for many business owners as they allow them to access their information 24/7. Plus, they have the confidence of knowing this information is held at a trusted and secured facility.

When it comes to protecting your small business, you need to enroll in a credit monitoring service and you need to watch your employees spending habits. Employees that are given a company credit card can quickly lose control of it and use it for personal spending, which can actually impact your company credit rating. Since small businesses are often directly tied to the owner's credit rating, it is important to do everything you can to limit using too much credit and to watch your personal spending habits. A credit monitoring service will alert your company if there is unusual activity on your accounts or if there is a change in your company credit report. It is important to correct errors as soon as they occur in order to protect your company information.

A simple way to protect your company credit rating and company information is to shred your documents. Always shred credit card statements or better yet, request to have them available online, this will cut down on the amount of wasted paper in the world. Everything that has personal information of any of your customers or your company information must be shredded. There are even companies out there that will come in and pick up your shredded documents and recycle the paper.

Another way to protect your small business is to purchase good antivirus software. You need to limit your employees browsing ability so they cannot access web sites that may be harmful to your company. It is also important to discuss email attachments as many viruses are sent this way. There are comprehensive antivirus software programs that include additional things like spyware protections, adware protection, spam blocking, and identity protection.

The last thing you can do to protect your small business is to purchase insurance. The insurance is necessary to cover your equipment along with protection from like fire, floods, and natural disasters.