Millions of people get affected by malicious programs and files every day. This cost organizations and individual the loss of sensitive data through a variety of deceptions, including Phishing scams, system flaw attacks and stolen employee or contractor credentials.

According to the National Cyber Security Alliance, one in five startup businesses falls victim to cybercrime each year. And of those, around 60% go out of business within six months after an attack.

Small businesses often lack the budget, staff, and sophistication to assemble strong defenses. Usually, startups don’t have huge budgets for security, but there are affordable steps they can take to significantly improve their security posture.

Smaller companies are increasingly attractive targets for attackers and are easy pickings and they don’t fight back like bigger companies. Just because a company is small, that doesn’t mean it can’t net huge payoffs for attackers. Often, small companies yield useful and confidential data that payoff attacker with fair information to monetize it.

Here are some essential security tips for startups and other organizations with low security budgets to protect their business against cyber-attacks more effectively and inexpensively:

Keep it Simple and Manageable:

When companies decide to take steps to secure their new or small businesses, too often they can’t afford to purchase and install different tools and complex software products that are designed for much larger enterprises.

Even if they have the budget, they will struggle to properly utilize and manage it. Small businesses should consider small software based security products that are feasible for their usage or select vendors that are well known for providing comprehensive security software in order to avoid paying too much for something they will struggle to use.

Start up business should focus on securing their systems from scratch, for that anti-malware software and system design testing is the best move. The earlier you start, more manageable it will be in future.

Mobile Security

Many employees use smartphones and tablets for their personal and business use. It is very essential to completely secure their mobile devices in order to protect company’s crucial data.

It is to be expected that your company’s data end up with a device that can be lost, stolen or breached by cyber criminals as many devices have weak security. It’s not surprising that the bad guys are targeting these vulnerable devices.

For startup businesses, mobile security and device management capabilities should be highly considered when creating inexpensive promising security for your organization. Small businesses should consider the use of separate device for business and personal use, so that if your personal device is compromised, no business data will be lost.

Think about Encryption

As long as small and startup businesses start processing and storing confidential information of customers, encryption is vital. If a computer gets infected with malicious software, there are possibilities of remote access by the hacker to the device. Where, unencrypted data may lead to leakage of company’s crucial information.

In the case of stolen or laptop and other business storage device, if the data is not encrypted then there are many chances that the data will end up being exposed to competitors or sold in the black market. It’s not just the loss of data, but also loss of trust from customers.

Integrated Security Solution:

For smaller businesses that may not have dedicated IT security staff, implementing a security solution that is managed through a single console makes sense. As complexity is the enemy of security, it’s critical that you choose cyber protection that allows you to set, manage and monitor security operations more effectively.

As a small business, there are more chances that your company likely don’t have the expertise, time or enough budget for surety purpose, so finding a single solution that supports your anti-malware, mobile security and encryption needs will be much easier to manage than trying multiple products.

Startups and small businesses should consider looking for one product that solves all of your security needs.

Funding your Protection:

The challenge for startups and small businesses is maintaining proper cyber protection. Of course it requires some funding to do so. For that company should decide and find the best anti malware, mobile and other security protection suite for their business needs.

Everyone wants the best protection system at the lowest possible price, but why purchase protection that you don’t need just because it’s part of the package that leaves your organization vulnerable?

Businesses should consider evaluating anti-malware and other security solutions that are either purchased or are implemented as a service.

Employee Awareness

Employee plays a critical role in any organization, it is obligatory for the businesses to strongly consider sponsoring a secure surfing training as part of employee training. It’s a great idea to provide a cyber-security manual referencing and awareness of employee to best security practices in order to manage organizational assets more securely.

It will enable organizations to reduce the cyber threat more effectively in a less expensive way. Spending millions on security solution will be abundant if employees are not trained to perform their task securely.

Use of Strong Password

Passwords are a primary target for hackers; organizations should consider using strong passwords. Most importantly, using different passwords for accessing the organization’s system and other personal accounts.

The strategy to secure information from hacking, passwords and other credential should be revised regularly. So, if credentials are leaked, the data will stay safe if the password is changed before its exposure.

Secure Coding

Hiring a security expert rather than hiring ordinary coder to code your system. It may leave some back doors for hackers to breach. Train your coder to avoid back doors and traps and use code analysis tools and third party security API’s to overcome security lack ness before it is compromised by any attacker.

Awareness of this kind of procedure to many startup businesses will help them to create a more secured organization from initial level. Rather than spending millions of dollars on security solution product, start from security your own build systems.

Hacking will remain a problem for every type of business nowadays and in coming years. Companies must find a way to reduce vulnerability from their end before spending millions in purchasing security services. If you want to succeed in a competitive economy as a startup, good cyber security practices are a must to adopt.