As modern businesses become more and more dependent on the internet and technology to expand their growth, whether it is to reach out to the customers or to manage their workload, it has become more and more important for such organizations to keep their networks secure. Any data breach in the networks can completely halt the functioning of their internet-based business. And it’s not just the big organizations that have a security threat looming, small businesses also face the same threat. But, small business heads shouldn’t focus too much of their resources to protect themselves from the security threats. They should just focus to eliminate some common internet mistakes that often put your business in risk. Here we have compiled together some common internet security mistakes you and your staff should be aware of:

1. UNCHANGED PASSWORDS: This is the most frequently made mistakes in internet security. While keeping their passwords unchanged is not intentional from many users, many don’t do it in light of their busy routine and to avoid the hassle of remembering a new password. Changing default passwords is very necessary to protect your network and business.
2. UNSAFE INTERNET ACTIVITIES: Opening attachments in e-mails or navigating to websites without first verifying their integrity can be catastrophic to your system. The internet has more malware content than you can imagine. While some of these malwares are designed to steal your credentials like saved passwords, credit card information, others are designed to dig deep into your network and destroy all the applications. Therefore, you must be aware of the websites you are visiting and the content you wish to download. A good practice in this regard is to keep your firewall on so that it informs you of malicious activities.
3. NO ANTI-VIRUS: While most of the systems have an anti-virus, many employees choose to temporarily stop it due to many reasons like the anti-virus interfering with their work or because of a pop-up window that appears whenever they open a new application. You should always have an anti-virus up and running. There are many Antivirus and Anti-malware programs available on the market. You should install one on every system of your business and regularly update it so that the database of the anti-virus doesn’t grow obsolete.
4. DATA NOT ENCRYPTED: These days, work of a business is not restricted to a single office-space. Often, employees need to travel and carry business critical information with them on portable hard-drives. It is most commonly noted that the employee doesn’t protect the data with a password. While encrypting the data is not practical always, you must always try to restrict access to the data.
5. UNSECURED WIRELESS NETWORKS: In many small businesses, the wireless network through which they connect and perform all the activities is encrypted with the lowest level of encryption. This can be extremely harmful for your business. Imagine a hacker connecting to your wireless network in a retail shop and stealing all the card information. You don’t want that for your business. So, always keep changing your wireless network passwords and properly encrypt it to allow only authorized access.