It is a sad fact of life that our computer systems can come under attack from hackers or phishing scams. You can never be 100% safe but small business owners can take some common sense steps to protect themselves, especially if they hold sensitive client data.
The National Cyber Security Centre has issued useful guidance on how to keep safe. They have broken this down into five topic areas:
- Backing up your data
- Protecting against malware
- Keeping smartphones and tablets safe
- Using passwords to protect data
- Avoiding phishing attacks
More information can be found at https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/10-steps-cyber-security
You also need to have contingency plans for what you will do should you be hacked including how you will recover your data, communicate with clients and the data protection regulator.