Businesses are at risk every day due to the threat of cyber attacks and data hacking. From viruses to ransomware, to your information simply being stolen, there is a lot of harm that can come from any breach. These breaches can occur to any company, though small and medium-sized businesses are statistically hit the hardest. These businesses often don’t have a dedicated IT and security team on hand to optimize their security, and so they are left vulnerable.

Don’t let this deter you, by following this guide you can better secure your business’ data and information today:

Only Keep Programs You Use

Old programs that are out of date and not used have no place on your servers. Though there is no inherent risk in keeping them, it does offer hackers a backdoor into your security. The reason this can happen is that old programs thataren’t used anymoreare generally not updated. Without the security updates, this can make old programs a risk to your company. Delete and unstill old programs entirely and ensure all your systems, programs, and extensions are updated regularly.

Regularly Scan Your System

A lot can slip past your firewall without you realizing it, which is why going through full system scans can help you to locate viruses and other suspicious files before they become a problem. Commit a full system scan, weed out problematic files, and keep your system secure.

Understand How to Protect Your Cloud Account

Cloud computing has really improved how businesses function and how productive they are. All of your information can be in one place, allowing real-time data sharing amongst your employees. The threat, of course, is that for every employee, there is a chance for a breach upon your data. There are also issues where account holders don’t utilize their account to its fullest, and therefore only actually protect a small amount of their overall data instead of the full breadth of it. That is why you need to follow this guide on Azure security best practices so that you can optimize your cloud’s security and better protect your business’ data.

Train Your Employees on Digital Security

There are many digital security threats that can occur because your employees don’t take their own cybersecurity seriously. For example, having old information and accounts on sites, you don’t use any more is a serious risk. The same can be said of having the same one or two passwords for everything. By hosting workshops to train your employees on how they can better protect themselves online and digitally, you can improve your company’s cybersecurity. The last thing you want is for a virus to be downloaded to your system because an employee accidentally opened a phishingemail.

Don’t underestimate the damage a hack can do to either your company or its reputation. By doing all you can to improve the safety and security of your company, you make yourself less of a target.