Cyber hygiene can be thought of as routine maintenance for your business’s digital health – just as brushing your teeth prevents cavities, cyber hygiene helps to prevent cyber attacks.

For businesses owners, especially those without a technical background, cybersecurity can feel overwhelming. But here’s the truth: basic cyber hygiene doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s just about implementing smart, manageable steps that make it harder for cybercriminals to exploit your business.

This post will talk about challenges you might face, the 12 key steps to improve your cyber hygiene, and where exactly you can begin to implement these changes.

Let’s dive in.

Cyber threats aren’t just a concern for large corporations. Just this year alone, over 500,000 small businesses in Canada experienced a cyber attack. SMBs are increasingly targeted because cybercriminals know they often lack strong defenses.

• Data Breaches: Bad actors can steal sensitive data like customer information, credit card details, and intellectual property. These breaches can lead to legal consequences, customer distrust, and massive fines, especially if compliance laws (like GDPR or HIPAA) are violated.
• Operational Downtime: Cyberattacks like ransomware or malware infections, can shut down critical systems for hours or even days. This downtime costs you productivity, revenue, and valuable time spent on recovery.
• Reputational Damage: Losing customer trust is often worse than the financial hit. Clients may choose competitors if they feel their data isn’t safe with you.
• Financial Loss: The combined costs of fines, legal fees, system repairs, and lost business can cripple a company. For smaller businesses, the financial impact is often too much to recover from.

The good news? Most attacks are preventable with consistent cyber hygiene practices.

Before we jump into the solution, let’s acknowledge some common challenges:

1. Lack of Awareness: Many business owners don’t know of the simple steps they can take to improve their cybersecurity. They may underestimate their risk, assuming they’re too small to be targeted. In reality, small businesses are prime targets for cybercriminals looking for easy wins.
2. Limited Resources: Small businesses usually operate without an in-house IT team or cybersecurity specialists. This can make it difficult to keep up with necessary updates, monitoring, and best practices.
3. Outdated Systems: Legacy software and hardware are common in many businesses because upgrading seems disruptive and like it’s an unnecessary cost. Unfortunately, outdated systems often have known vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit.
4. Overwhelming Options: Cybersecurity solutions can feel confusing or overly technical, leaving business owners unsure where to start. Between firewalls, endpoint protection, and encryption tools, it’s easy to get lost in the noise.

If any of this sounds familiar, know you’re not alone. The key is to start small, focus on the essentials, and improve from there.

Here are 12 practical steps steps every business should be taking to strengthen their cyber hygiene (don’t worry – you don’t need to tackle them all at once).

Start by understanding what you need to protect. Create an inventory of your essential assets:

• Hardware: laptops, phones, servers, printers
• Software: email systems, accounting tools, CRMs
• Data: customer records, financial data, intellectual property

Knowing what you have is the first step to protecting it.

What are the biggest threats to your business? These might be:

• Phishing emails
• Malware infections
• Employees accidentally deleting or leaking data

Conduct a risk assessment to prioritize which areas need the most protection.

Treat your network like your business’s “castle”. Not all areas of your network need the same level of access:

• Protect your most valuable systems (like financial tools) with stronger defenses.
• Use firewalls and monitoring tools to keep threats out.

Only give employees access to what they absolutely need to do their jobs. For example, your marketing team doesn’t need access to payroll nor does payroll need access to your leads list.

This reduces risk of human error or malicious activity.

Set up standardized, secure settings for all devices:

• Laptops and desktops
• Phones and tablets
• Firewalls and routers

If every device follows the same comprehensive security baseline, you’ll have far less weak spots.

Keeping your software up-to-date is a lot more important than people tend to think. The patches made in the updates is what keeps your software secure and hackers are actively looking for outdated systems with known vulnerabilities.

• Regularly update operating systems, apps, and devices.
• Automate updates wherever possible.

Traditional antivirus isn’t enough to keep the bad guys out anymore. Use tools with endpoint detection and response (EDR) to detect and stop advanced threats.

These tools use AI to identify suspicious behavior in real-time so it can be flagged down and taken care of before it’s too late.

Passwords alone aren’t secure. Add an extra layer of protection with 2FA:

• Use apps like Microsoft or Google Authenticator wherever possible.
• Encourage employees to use password managers to store strong, unique passwords.

A reliable backup strategy is your safety net if something goes wrong. Follow the 3-2-1 rule:

• 3 copies of your data
• 2 different storage types (e.g., cloud and external drive)
• 1 backup stored offsite

Test your backups often to ensure they work when you need them.

Hackers will eventually target your business. Be prepared.

• Create a clear plan for handling cyber incidents (like ransomware attacks).
• Test your plan so your team knows what to do under pressure.

Your employees are your first line of defense. Regular cyber awareness training offers:

• How to spot phishing emails
• The importance of strong passwords
• Safe browsing habits
• Do’s and Dont’s when on company networks

A well-informed team helps create a “human firewall” for your business.

If you work with vendors, cloud services, or contractors, their cybersecurity matters too. Verify that they meet your security standards. For example, if a vendor has access to any of your company’s data, it is your responsibility to make sure they have strong encryption and security protocols.

Feeling overwhelmed? That’s completely normal. THe key is to take it one step at a time.

Here’s a simple action plan:

1. Start with Step 1: Identify your key assets.
2. Update your systems and software to address the most obvious security gaps.
3. Implement easy wins like two-factor authentication and backups.
4. Reach out to cybersecurity experts for help whenever needed.

Cyber hygiene isn’t about perfection – it’s about progress. Each step you take strengthens your business against threats.

At Lighthouse, we specialize in helping businesses like yours secure their systems and data. Whether you need help identifying risks, setting up protections, or training your team, we’ve got you covered.

Ready to take the first step toward a safer business?

Visit this page and fill out our form and I’ll be happy to get in contact with you.