As Veterans Day reminds us, no one knows better than members of the military why it’s critical to maintain a vigilant defense. The more than 2.5 million veterans who own small businesses can apply that principle at their companies, too. Hackers are looking to exploit weaknesses in data perimeters, and business owners can’t afford to lose time, money, and customer goodwill to a compromised network. Knowing some cybersecurity basics and putting them in practice will help you protect sensitive employee and consumer information and reduce the risk of a cyber attack. That’s why the FTC developed resources – with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security – to help your business stay secure online.
Your best defense is an informed workforce, so here are some highlights to get the conversation started with your team:
- Consult Cybersecurity for Small Business, the FTC’s no-nonsense site for security-conscious business owners. Download the guide for employers and use the quizzes to assess where your staff might need a refresher.
- Develop a plan to protect your customers’ personal information, and know what to do if there is a data breach.
- Share the Cybersecurity Basics and Ransomware videos on your site and social networks.
- Stay connected by subscribing to the FTC’s Business Blog at FTC.gov/Subscribe.
For more tips on protecting your company from hackers and scammers, visit ftc.gov/SmallBusiness.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.