It’s one of the biggest business nightmares that is replaying itself on a monthly basis in the business world. Data breaches expose unpleasant people with mal intent to mission-critical data and private information.
In some cases, it’s an outside party — a hacker — looking to gain access. In other cases, it’s someone on the inside taking information out. Both cases have an equally high impact on your company’s reputation — a reputation you’ve spent a lifetime building.
For those whose data has been exposed, there’s the feeling of being violated. Customers wonder if they’ll ever trust again. Their first instinct is to flee.
For the company that gets breached, it’s that pit-in-the-stomach feeling that years, if not decades, of investment into building trust with the customer just vaporized with a single event.
Business owners of small to midsized businesses need to place a high priority on having an IT security and vulnerability conversation. Chances are your company systems have confidential customer data that if breached, could cause catastrophic harm to your pristine reputation.
Here are three common excuses you simply should not find yourself giving:
- We’re too small. Nobody is going to try and hack us.
- We don’t have any real data to breach. We don’t even store customer credit card numbers.
- It’s going to cost too much to try and button everything down perfectly.
The fact is you’re not too small.
In the digital world, your company’s server IP looks no different than the next. Your competition is also just as likely to recruit away your employees who have data on their devices you don’t want the competition to have. And when it comes to cost, what’s your reputation worth? How long would it take you to rebuild it?
Here are three simple steps to putting some serious distance between yourself and a reputation-crushing episode:
Have the conversation internally
Make a list of all the data you have that must be protected. Include everything from client lists and contact information to company intellectual property, agreements and customer data.
Find experts to help
Invite expert(s) in to help you war-game multiple scenarios and solutions to find the one that makes the most sense for you.
Set clear and firm policies
Be clear about everything from data access down to the individual computer user in the company. Just a few keystrokes in most company networks would allow any employee to take the entire client list, pricing structure, supply chain and financial infrastructure to any place they want. Make sure your company is protected from that.
The big brands have PR machines and millions of dollars of marketing power to rectify the fallout of data breaches. You may not have the same cushion. Even a small group of key customers leaving could be harmful to your sustainability.
Take this topic seriously. Engage in the conversation with experts and get your data locked down and protected. The investment you’ve made in your reputation is worth the small investment of time and resource this process requires. ●
