How Truly Secure Is Your Website?

Many business owners will likely tell you that they are rather confident their websites are safe from outside threats. Will that may very well be true, what about inside threats?

Yes, some employees have been known (charged and convicted along the way) to steal from their employers via illegal online activities. When the former does that, it not only hurts the company and its customers financially, but it also can damage a company’s business reputation.

With so much at stake, stop for a moment and ask yourself just how truly secure your website is.

Taking the Fight to Identity Theft and Other Online Crimes

So that your business can stay a step ahead of online criminals, you should always review the security procedures you have in place.

For starters, one would assume you have a security software system in place, though that is not the case for some business owners, some of whom think their brands are too small to ever be targeted.

When it comes to choosing the right security software system provider, you can’t think about just your in-house computers.

Also look at any laptops employees will be using when traveling for business, company credit cards used to buy supplies and/or wine and dine potential clients etc.

So, where do you turn to get the best protection at the best price?

Given all you have to do as a business owner, you likely do not have the time (perhaps the patience too) to review countless companies and their security products. As a result, you may just pick one out of the blue that sounds good, hoping that it will effectively protect you and your brand against theft.

A better route to travel is finding a service provider that will do the reviews for you, saving you time and hopefully money along the way.

Whether you select LifeLock reviews or other such options, you lessen the time and effort you need to spend in picking the best security software provider.

In trying to pick a software system, look at some of the following features:

• Experience – For starters, how long has the company been around? If they are new on the block, do not automatically discount them, though experience certainly is a plus in this situation;
  
  
• Customer service – Always remember that you want a security software provider working for you, not the other way around. Does the company respond to client needs in a prompt and courteous manner? Are they available 24/7, especially given problems can occur at the most inopportune times? Will they fully return your money if you are not completely satisfied with the product and/or service? Lastly, you want a company that will do follow-up calls with you, checking in to make sure all is working well with its products and/or services.
  

Avoid Complacency in the Workplace

Once you have security system software in place, you then need to make sure everyone connected to your business is doing all they can to negate the chances of an online criminal or criminals successfully penetrating your company.

Worse yet, if one or more of those criminals turn out to be on your staff, what will you do?

If you think it can’t happen to you, you’d better rework that line of thinking.

Whether they are full-time workers or temp staff, just one rogue employee has the potential to create a nightmare scenario for both you and your customers.

When you are going through the hiring process, be sure to stress in no uncertain terms that identity theft within the workplace will simply never be tolerated. In fact, employees caught doing so can lose their jobs and/or be subjected to legal action.

Even though you may feel like you can never 100 percent fully guarantee yourself that your business will be safe, you certainly can increase the odds that it will be less of a target for online criminals.

Your business website is essentially your online business card, so it needs to be cared for regularly, given as much of your time and effort as possible.

When it comes to fighting back against identity theft thieves and others with ill intent being shown towards your brand, take the fight directly to them.