Foundations of Cyber Hygiene: 12 Essential Steps to Protect Your Business

Cyber hygiene can be thought of as routine maintenance for your business’s digital health. Just as personal hygiene like 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.

I will talk about the 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: A security breach can occur when bad actors steal sensitive data like customer information, credit card details, and intellectual property. These breaches can lead too 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.

Click here to learn more about ransomware.

• 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 hygiene practices.

Implementing good cyber hygiene practices can bring numerous benefits to your business. Here are some of the key advantages:

1. Improved Security Posture: By adopting robust cyber hygiene practices, you strengthen your organization’s security posture, making it more challenging for cybercriminals to launch successful attacks.
2. Reduced Risk of Security Breaches: Consistent cyber hygiene practices significantly reduce the risk of security breaches.
3. Protection of Sensitive Data: Another benefit is the protection of sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII) and financial data, from unauthorized access and theft.
4. Cost Savings: Preventing security breaches through good cyber hygiene can save your organization the costs associated with responding to and recovering from such incidents.
5. Compliance with Regulations: Implementing cyber hygiene practices ensures compliance with regulatory requirements like GDPR and HIPAA, which mandate the protection of sensitive data.
6. Improved Incident Response: By responding more effectively to security incidents, you will be able to minimize the impact of a breach and reducing downtime.
7. A Solid Reputation: Businesses that prioritize cyber hygiene are seen as more trustworthy and reputable, enhancing their brand reputation and fostering customer loyalty.

As with implementing anything new into your business, there will be some challenges. I think it’s important to point out these challenges so you can recognize them and take action early.

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.

The following are some of the most common mistakes I see businesses make when it comes to their cyber hygiene. These mistakes can undermine your cybersecurity efforts and they highlight the importance of having a cybersecurity partner to ensure everything is set up properly and cyber hygiene practices are implemented effectively:

1. Poor Password Management: Using weak passwords, not changing them regularly, and neglecting multi-factor authentication can compromise your security. Encourage the use use of strong, unique passwords and password managers in the office.
2. Outdated Software and Operating Systems: Failing to update software and operating systems leaves your business vulnerable to known security flaws. Regular updates are critical for maintaining the security of your devices, applications, and systems.
3. Insufficient Security Awareness Training: Without regular security awareness training, employees may inadvertently cause security breaches. Educate your team on recognizing phishing attempts and practicing safe online behaviour.
4. Inadequate Data Protection: Not implementing measures like encryption and regular backups can lead to data loss and theft. This is arguably one of the most critical steps in good cyber hygiene.
5. Ignoring Mobile Device Security: Mobile devices are often overlooked in security plans. Ensure that all mobile devices accessing company data are secured with strong passwords and encryption.
6. Not Implementing a Cyber Hygiene Checklist: A comprehensive hygiene checklist helps ensure no security practices are left behind. Regularly review and update this checklist.
7. Not Monitoring for Suspicious Activity: Failing to monitor for suspicious activity can delay the detection and response to security incidents. Implement continuous monitoring to catch threats early.

Here are 12 practical steps you can add to your security checklist to strengthen your cyber hygiene (don’t worry – you don’t need to tackle these 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 in 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 help prioritize which areas need the most protection.

Take our free 2-minute risk assessment.

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 they 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 and response (EDR) to detect and stop advanced threats.

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

Passwords alone aren’t secure, especially when most employees are reusing the same password across several accounts. You can add an extra layer of protection by implementing 2FA.

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

We recommend LastPass for a comprehensive and easy-to-use password manager.

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 will work when you need them.

Hackers will eventually target your business so you need to be prepared. Just as you might have an evacuation plan in case of a fire, you need an incident response plan in the event of a cyber attack.

• Create a clear plan for handling cyber incidents (like ransomware attacks).
• Test your plan regularly 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 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.

Measuring and improving cyber hygiene is an ongoing process that requires regular assessment and evaluation. Here are some steps to help you stay on top of your cyber hygiene:

1. Conducting Regular Security Audits: Regular security audits help identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in your systems. Another bonus to regular audits is staying on top of compliance! Address these issues promptly to strengthen your security.
2. Implementing a Cyber Hygiene Checklist: As I’ve stressed before, a cyber hygiene checklist will ensure that you are following all necessary security practices. Regularly review and update this checklist to keep up with evolving threats.
3. Monitoring for Suspicious Activity: Continuous monitoring for suspicious activity helps you to detect and respond to security incidents quickly.
4. Providing Regular Security Awareness Training: Regular training sessions will keep employees informed about the latest cyber threats and best practices. Remember, a well-trained team is your first line of defense.
5. Using Security Software: Invest in robust security software such as antivirus software and firewalls. Additionally, make sure this software is regularly updated.
6. Implementing Incident Response Planning: A well-defined response plan will reduce downtime, mitigate damage, and help your organization respond effectively to security incidents.
7. Continuously Evaluating and Improving Cyber Hygiene Practices: Cyber threats are constantly evolving therefore, so must your defenses. Regularly evaluate and improve your cyber hygiene practices to stay ahead of emerging threats.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to maintain strong cyber hygiene and protect your critical systems and sensitive data from cyber threats.

Are you feeling a bit overwhelmed? That’s completely normal. The key to all of this is taking 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.