If you’re a business owner, you already understand some of the basic benefits of technology. It can improve everything from your marketing efforts to your point of sale system. But advancements in tech and cybersecurity have also helped to reduce crime rates in recent years. As they continue to advance, it’s likely that reduced crime will be a trend that continues.
What does that mean for your business?
Essentially, it means you don’t have to be a tech guru to provide your business with the cybersecurity it needs. Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to their crimes, and not every business owner can afford to hire an IT team to keep things safe.
Thankfully, technology is doing a lot of the work. If you’re willing to do some research and invest in the latest advancements in tech, you’ll provide greater protection for your business, your data, and your customers.
Let’s check out some of the new advances in tech and how they are helping to deter crime and improve safety. We’ll also touch on things like passwordless authenticity, destroying sensitive documents, and emerging tech trends that can help to prevent cybercrime.
Getting Smart With Tech
One of the best ways to see just how well technology is lowering crime rates is to take a look at smart cities. Smart cities are defined as technologically modern urban areas. They often implement things like smart parking to let drivers find a spot, or smart traffic management to monitor flow and decrease the amount of traffic jams.
The technology used in smart cities is also often designed with safety in mind. A shining example of that is smart street lights. In smart cities across the country, these lights are reducing crime rates in cities by:
- Offering better visibility for pedestrians and drivers;
- Monitoring traffic to reduce accidents;
- Detering potential offenders by illuminating necessary areas.
If you’re thinking about opening a brick-and-mortar business or you already have one, consider what your city is doing to keep things safe. Do you already live in a smart city? If so, it’s worth it to learn more about technological efforts designed to protect you.
Crime Prevention Technology
Taking actionable steps to prevent cybercrime and stay safe is the best way to reduce your business’ risk of becoming victimized and potentially losing everything. Being proactive can deter would-be criminals from attempting to hack into your systems or steal important information. By strengthening your security efforts, you’ll deter hackers, rather than attract them. Many cybercriminals want to sneak in and out as quickly as possible without being detected. When you make that difficult for them to do, they might choose to leave you alone and move on to the next potential victim.
You can also use crime-prevention technology as an everyday practice in your business to keep everyone safer. Things like passwordless authentication are becoming more common and for good reasons. Chances are, you have multiple passwords for accounts in your personal and professional lives. But, it can be easy for smart and sophisticated hackers to steal those passwords and gain access to important information.
Passwordless authentication works by verifying each user’s identity without them having to enter a specific password. This is often done through biometric measures, like scanning a fingerprint or retina. Your employees don’t have to worry about remembering multiple passwords or what might happen if those passwords are stolen. Instead, they’ll be able to log in using unique identifying factors. It’s something you can unilaterally implement into your business without having to do much training with your employees, and it will provide an automatic improvement in your cybersecurity efforts.
It’s much easier to put measures in place that are designed to prevent cybercrime, rather than trying to deal with it after the fact. But, what else can you do?
Training Employees on Good Security Practices
If you’re not sure where to get started when it comes to preventing cybercrime, take advantage of cybersecurity software. It’s one of the easiest and most effective ways to start protecting your business right away. There are countless programs out there that might require you to do a bit of research. You should consider factors like the size of your business, how many employees you have, and how secure your data needs to be.
Speaking of employees, the next step is to train them in best practices when it comes to cybersecurity. Humans are flawed, and human error is often what causes security breaches. While you might not be able to completely prevent mistakes from happening, the more you use tech training to your advantage, the less likely it is that someone will allow sensitive data to be shared. Basic training topics for your employees should include:
- Knowing how to spot phishing emails;
- Using multi-factor authentication tools;
- Not downloading suspicious files;
- Avoiding suspicious links.
It’s especially important to make sure your remote employees are trained, too. Remote work is only possible because of advancements in technology, but you could be liable if one of your remote employees makes a mistake and causes a security breach. They need to have just as much training (and perhaps more) to ensure they know how to keep things like cloud-based data, passwords, and sensitive information safe from scammers and criminals.
Good security practices should also apply to offline data. One way that you can ensure that information doesn’t get into the wrong hands is by including document shredding in your data security practices. Some criminals dig through trash or recycling to find data-filled documents, so leaving them whole and tossing them in the bin isn’t enough. Instead, you need to properly dispose of your documents in order to minimize the risk of a data breach.
Finally, secure your networks. This is essential for your in-house employees and your remote team. Using encryption and putting up a firewall is a great way to start. If you’re not sure how to do that, it’s worth it to outsource an IT team to set it up for you. For your remote team, encourage the use of a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This will allow them to connect to your office network safely and securely.
Conclusion
Technology is changing everything about the working world. From advancements in AI to immeasurable growth thanks to a business’s ability to expand digitally across the globe, it’s essential to keep up with tech trends not only for your business’s success but for its safety. Keep these ideas in mind to make sure your business stays as safe as possible from cybercrime. Technology is doing a lot of the work for you and lowering crime rates across the country, but it can only work for your business if you choose to implement it.
Feature image by Unsplash
