Every business is open to all sorts of threats. Not being able to identify these threats can lead to future problems that can cost millions of dollars. Therefore, threat management is essential to every business, especially in the ever-changing digital world. But not many business owners can’t identify threats to their businesses. This article will look into the most common digital threats and how you can deal with them.
Digital threats can attack at any time. They can ruin the empire you’ve made from the ground-up, in a matter of minutes. But, before we start talking about these threats, we should talk about the internet and the various denizens that reside in it.
The Internet
There are about four billion people in the world who use the internet actively. These people use it for socialization, business, and sometimes for nefarious acts such as hacking. Unfortunately, we can’t really identify the number of hackers globally because it’s hard to find them. But it’s safe to assume that a fraction of those four billion people have some knowledge about hacking. That’s a lot of potential threats to your business.
Although it can be tough to identify hackers, we do know where these people usually dwell. Hackers and other digital threats usually sell their services or do their shady tasks in a place called the dark web.
The Dark Web
The dark web is a part of the internet where everyone is anonymous. Accessing it is pretty tricky, and venturing within its servers is usually left to professionals. Many consider the dark web evil, but experts believe it’s a necessary evil we must learn to live alongside. In a world that dictators and terrorists oppress, some find refuge in the dark web: journalists and freedom fighters fighting the good fight.
This dark part of the internet helps shelter these people, despite sheltering thousands of cyber-criminals. No one can ever control the dark web, but some services can protect your business from it. For example, a dark web monitoring service for your business can make a difference in identifying digital threats coming from the dark web and dealing with them.
A monitoring service can watch over your business credentials and personal information and see whether it’s being sold on the platform. If it is, you will be informed immediately so that you can take the necessary actions to stop it from spreading. However, not all criminal transactions happen on the dark web. Some of it can happen in real-time, on the internet.
Data Breaches
The most common threat to digital businesses nowadays is data breaches. The average cost that businesses pay for a data breach is around four million dollars. That’s a lot of money down the drain, and that money is only used to pay for damages and not necessarily deal with the threat. So how do you protect your business from such a threat?
Use HTTPS
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is something you might have seen when typing down a website on the internet. However, if your business website does not have it, then you’re in serious problem.
Experts in dealing with digital threats believe that your first line of defense against data breaches is by using web-hosting services that have HTTPS. In simple terms, HTTPS can help lessen the chance of any breach that might happen on your website because most data transfers will be secured by then. In addition, it makes it harder for hackers and malware to enter your website.
Subscribe to Digital Security Tools
Although it’s not all that necessary, digital security tools can be your second line of defense against the threats of data breaches. These tools include Netsparker, OpenVAS, and more. Experts don’t necessarily suggest digital security tools for websites that only have been around for five years, and that’s only receiving thousands of visits every day. However, the need for one increases the more visitors you have to your site.
It might also be worth investing in these tools if business transactions such as selling and buying on your website. Hackers are more interested in sites like this because of the personal information they can mine out from it. If such transactions do happen on your website, then you should invest in digital security tools immediately.
Digital threats are common in this modern world. Managing it can mean saving your company from a future legal issue. Cyberlaw experts believe that spending millions on countermeasures is better than spending millions in paying victims of a data breach in your website. So keep an eye out against these threats, and ensure that your business is safe from it.