Stay Smart Online
Category : Practice Updates
Keeping your business information safe is crucial to protecting your business. With an ever-increasing amount of information being stored online it’s important you take precautions.
By stealing information thieves can use your business identity to create fake businesses, lodge fraudulent GST claims, take out loans, and commit other types of fraud in your name.
To help you protect your information, Stay Smart Online has published the Small business guide. Here are their top five tips.
- Use strong passwords
Good passwords have 10 or more characters, and include a mix of numbers, letters, special characters, and upper and lower cases. Change them regularly, and don’t use the same password twice.
- Make regular backups
Regularly backing up your data to a USB or portable hard drive can help you quickly recover from a cyber-attack, hard disk failure or another disastrous event.
- Stay aware
The more you know about online security the more you can apply that knowledge in your business. Subscribe to the free Stay Smart Online alert service for news about online threats.
- Keep information confidential
Use programs that let you separate administrator and user logins. By limiting access, you reduce the risk of an employee accidentally or maliciously releasing confidential information.
- Maintain network and device security
Install antivirus software and set your systems to automatically update it regularly on your computer, mobile devices, and smartphones.
These steps will help you protect not only your information, but also that of your customers and suppliers.
Source: Australian Taxation Office