Safeguard Your Business! 3 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Do to Protect Their Company Protect your business from being held hostage with these cybersecurity tools.

Welcome to hostage class 101, you true guide to the reality of how you might be putting your business at risk and might be clueless about it. Everything that's out on the online platform comes with an unseen risk. If you think you are secure, you are absolutely kidding yourself. No one in this age of the Internet is SECURE!

Just imagine a scenario where you physically can't enter your own office because it is been taken over by someone else. You have tried everything but entering your own premises is a big no-no. And suddenly to release your own office you are being asked to pay a humungous amount of INR 50,00,000.

Well, that's the same scenario when ransomware/ cyber attacks happen. But instead of your concrete office building, it's your server, machines, computers, and network being held, hostage. Now the damage can range from something as good as nothing or can be catastrophic, taking over all the control.

One such example is that of Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center when in 2016 their systems were shut for a period of three weeks, causing massive disruption in their day-to-day procedures. In fact, the management was asked ransom demand of $3.7 million dollars to provide the key. Another noted case was in 2018, Cass Regional Medical Center in Harrisonville, Missouri, had to transfer all their emergency and trauma cases to other hospitals as the result of ransomware attack which hacked their EMR system.

To put it simply, don't mistake and think that only major organizations are at risk of this. Even minor business are the victims of such attacks. Majority of us aren't taken cautious steps to secure our digital assets, which directly puts us to the higher risk. According to researches cyberattacks target small business as they are still vulnerable.

Well, this might be too much to intake and as an inexperienced entrepreneur or someone who has just ventured into the world of business, having a stable IT department is surely not on our priority list. The world of cybersecurity might sound complex and confusing. To be honest, you don't have to be a tech freak to keep your business from being hacked. All you need to do is keep some wise tips and tricks in mind that will pretty much take care of the rest.

Source: Pixabay

• Process Placed By ICANN And Other Internet Governing Bodies:

The increasing penetration of the internet in India, accompanied by the rapid growth of the internet space in the last few years, has created new challenges for safeguarding brands from infringements and cybersquatting cases.

"Recently, the European data privacy regulation, GDPR, came into effect, and drastically reduced our ability to identify the perpetrator of online crimes. With such mounting challenges, traditional tools and remedies such as trademarks, and judiciary fall short due to their territorial limitations - a court order issued in India will not be effective against a cyber squatter in Japan and vice versa," express Vivek Goyal, Co-Founder, LdotR.

In order to tackle the challenges of cybersquatting and brand infringements in the online space, Goyal feels that the brands and businesses have to utilize specific new tools and processes put in place by ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and other internet governing bodies.

"These tools and processes empower brand protection agencies to (a) prevent infringements (b) monitor the internet for infringements and (c) nullify infringements efficiently and effectively. Using these tools we can work across all digital platforms – domains, websites, social media, app stores, and online marketplaces to continually look for infringements, assess the risk they pose and take immediate action to neutralize them before they can inflict harm to the brand, business, and its customers," he added.

• Trust In The Vendor:

Not everything can be taken care of from our end. At times we outsource services to protect the system, servers at our end. Picking up the right vendor and having faith in their work, plays a vital role.

Explaining the concept, Hyther Nizam, Director of Technology, Zoho says, "Businesses have to be careful when they choose an online tool. To prevent and overcome vendor lock-in, there are a few things they should keep in mind. To start with, they should check if the vendor has standardized data models for portability (CSV export is the minimum requirement). The portability should include data, meta-data (data structure) and business logic. If the vendor has only a visual way of implementing business logic, then it's a problem. They should also provide a code layer to export the logic. The authentication and authorization (that is the permission set of who does what) should adhere to familiar industry formats like LDAP or Active Directory. Above all, trust in the vendor is the most important aspect. Vendors with a long history of commitment to product and customer service will go an extra mile to provide all the information the customer wants to take in and out of the system."

• Firewall:

You don't have to be Einstein to know that firewalls are a must. They are this virtual wall that protects your system and network from getting unauthorized access. It simply builds this important partition between a trusted internal network and an untrusted external network.

"For Cyberattack, we use the web application firewall called Indusface as it offers best website security which ensures that our online business is protected from 'malware' and hackers. Risk calculation for transactions, to prevent online fraud and block high-risk transactions we use Maxmind; it also cut chargebacks, and reduce manual review. For beneficiary (verifying an individual's identity) verification we use Aadhar System API's and Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure we use for securing our communication over a computer network, and to ensure that all communications are encrypted," says Co-founder & CTO of Ketto - Zaheer Adenwala.