Business.com

Business.com

How to Prevent Your Small Business From Falling Victim to Phishing Attacks

Posted: 05 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT

Forget viruses – the No. 1 security threat you need to be on the lookout for as a small business owner is phishing. It often doesn't require any access to specialized technological tools, it can be done by anyone with a persuasive attitude, and it can work on pretty much any organization out there. The appeal for attackers is clear, but what should the average business owner do to protect themselves against this sort of thing?

What is phishing?

Put simply, phishing involves tricking a user into either submitting their credentials or installing malicious software. This is often done by masking the attack as something else. A classic example is an urgent e-mail from your bank, alerting you of a breach in your account. You are told to follow a link to verify your credentials immediately or risk having your account frozen.

This kind of urgency can trip up many people, and before they know it, they are typing in their password into a website owned by an attacker. Sometimes you may not even realize that anything has happened at all, as the attacker will then redirect you to the actual website of your bank (or whatever you were supposed to visit).

Constant training is a must.

Even if you're aware of the dangers of phishing yourself, your employees are another story. You have to make sure that everyone is on the same page and that people are following the appropriate security guidelines down to the last letter. Be harsh if you have to – have consequences for those who do not follow the rules, and reward those that do to prevent phishing attacks.

In the end, it's not you as the company's owner that is more likely to be targeted by a phishing attack. Instead, it's usually a low-level employee who is not as involved in the company as his or her co-workers but who still has just enough access to cause a lot of damage.

Update your software.

Some phishing attacks rely on outdated software that is then exploited by the attacker's systems. Preventing this is as simple as ensuring that everything used in your organization is always up to date. I don't mean the obvious things either, like Windows itself, your antivirus and firewall. You should install updates for absolutely everything you're using, because it can all be a potential security hole.

Even something innocent like a PDF reader, even an image viewer, can be turned into a weapon if it has the "right" kind of flaw in its code. The next time you get a notification about a Java update or something similar, don't postpone it, and don't allow your employees to do so either.

Implement good password policies.

A common element in phishing attacks is that after a successful attack, the attacker will try to use the captured credentials in as many places as possible. If your employees keep reusing the same passwords all over the place, this is an obvious problem – it gives an attacker access to much more than what they originally broke into.

If a breach happens, you have to ensure it's as isolated as possible. To that end, enforce strong password policies and develop a system that prevents anyone from circumventing them. Sure, it will be annoying for your employees to have to change their password to a completely unique one every 90 days or so, but in the long run, it will prevent a lot of potential issues in your company.

Isolate critical components in your company's infrastructure.

On a related note, try to isolate critical components in your infrastructure as much as possible. For example, if you're running a centralized backup solution, not everyone needs to have direct access to the backup server. Some systems can be kept completely offline, too, save for a few critical connections to the central infrastructure. Not everyone needs to have access to the database that stores customer data, for example.

It will take some time to sort out your network in this way, and it might slow some operations because they will require an extra step or two. But if someone breaks into your network, they will find themselves pretty limited in what they can do from there.

Implement a centralized network protection solution.

No matter how well you might have trained your employees, sometimes someone will click on the wrong link. It's a good idea to run some sort of centralized filtering solution that prevents these issues from escalating further. A central firewall that everyone connects through can easily filter potentially malicious sites and prevent employees from accessing them. You can even be alerted when an incident like this has occurred so you can evaluate it on a more detailed level.

Of course, your employees should still retain their sense of privacy. But it's not a bad idea to have an extra eye checking the links that they want to visit.

Conduct training drills.

Big organizations do this often, and it doesn't hurt to try it in your own company as well, even if you're more limited on resources. It doesn't take much to implement a training drill for phishing attacks, and it can give you detailed statistics on how your employees have performed. You can identify those who seem to have trouble adjusting to the new requirements in addition to determining if certain types of threats are more likely to succeed than others. This can be extremely valuable information in making your network safer in the long run.

Most importantly, though, you need to be proactive. Phishing protection is not something you should leave until the last minute. A breach only needs to happen once to mess things up significantly for you, and from then on, it will be quite difficult for you to recover. As long as you pay attention to the important factors and know how to approach this, you should be able to establish a safe, secure system that prevents most breaching attacks from getting through and causing any real harm to your business.

Phishing attacks can happen to anyone.

Don't make the mistake of assuming that a phishing attack can never happen to you. Phishing attacks are more frequent than ever these days, and they keep hitting various businesses regularly. Sometimes they're not even targeted at businesses – one recent example saw a phishing attack designed to target activists in various fields. The attack extracted various personal details from their victims, including passwords, location data and work they've been involved in.

As you've probably surmised, this can be very damaging to someone involved in activities like this, and there has already been major concern about the implications of the situation. What's left for small businesses then? If someone is willing to target individuals without even doing it for profit, then the implications for someone targeting your business are definitely frightening.

Professionals using LinkedIn were also recently reported to have been targeted by phishing attacks. This seemed to particularly target business owners, rather than employees of specific companies. As you can see, phishing attacks can easily come from many different angles, and it's difficult to predict where you're going to get hit from exactly. In some cases, even a professionally worded message on a social media platform  could have serious implications, and it's important to pay attention to the small print if you want to avoid getting burned.

Government organizations are frequently targeted as well, especially smaller ones. Collier County officials reported recently that scammers had managed to extract nearly $200,000 in a phishing attack that targeted the county directly. Despite the fact that the government is taking active measures in protecting itself against such attacks, cyberattacks still manage to break through occasionally.

This is exactly what things look like for the average small business as well and why it's so important to pay attention to current trends regarding phishing attacks and other similar scams. The market is constantly evolving, and sometimes the new developments that we see on the technological front can be frightening. Protecting your business against phishing attacks is an ongoing effort and not something that you can do once and call it a day.

Why are smaller businesses more attractive to hackers?

Limited resources are an obvious answer to that question, but there are many more reasons. With a smaller business, one could typically expect employees to be less experienced and less defensive. It's also reasonable to expect them to be somewhat less motivated in defending the company's secrets. All of these factors combined can indeed paint a very attractive target on your smaller company. It shouldn't be surprising that many of the major phishing attacks attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in smaller organizations.

And this will likely get even worse in the future. It's getting easier and easier to start a small company with minimal resources these days, and many entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of that. And with that, many hackers have been trying to exploit the situation as well.

All of this means one thing for the random small business owner: Proactive protection is more important than ever. You have to take active measures to prevent these attacks from getting through, because it only takes once for things to get really bad. After that, you'll likely pay more attention to your security, but it will be far too late to do anything to save your company.

Not Taking Vacation Decreases SMB Productivity

Posted: 05 Sep 2019 10:00 AM PDT

  • Regular refueling in the form of breaks or vacations is a prerequisite for high-quality output. 
  • Continuous time on-task causes strain reactions such as stress and fatigue. 
  • The brain tires well before the body and its energy reserves do. 

The prevalence of the term "work-life balance" means that today, in order to have productive employees, small businesses need to allow their workers to take vacations. While work-life balance means different things to every organization and its employees, the underlying message is that in order to excel at work, a balance between work and home needs to be attainable.

In order to increase the productivity of workers, research suggests that taking a break and getting some clarity away from work pays dividends in terms of productivity and, therefore, output. 

How does not taking vacations impact employees? 

When employees first start at their jobs or when individuals first set up their own business, their productivity is sky-high. Day in and day out, employees put their all into the company in order to cement their positions or make their company successful. While undoubtedly impressive, this kind of work ethic can't last forever. 

Overworking habits are only sustainable until both mental and physical barriers come to the forefront. While these habits may be harmful to the individual, there comes a point when overworking leads to negative outcomes for the company as well in the form of fatigue-induced errors, more days off work and eventually staff turnover. 

In the beginning, it is easy to fall into a pattern of overworking and obsessing over tasks so that they are completed to perfection. However, research shows that individuals can produce higher quality and more time-efficient work once the brain and body have been recharged. 

Therefore, the importance of taking vacation time and the benefits to an individual's psyche can't be overstated, especially since research shows that 60% of people experienced increased levels of stress when not taking enough vacation days. 

While taking time off may be difficult for both the employer and employee, taking these breaks allows for the employee to return to work with a clearer and more efficient approach to their work. This is due to the fact that the time away has allowed them to refuel and de-stress. 

Here are some of the negative effects that can occur when employees don't use their paid time off (PTO).

Workers experience chronic stress

Chronic stress is one of the most common health issues in the workplace. Too much stress over a long period of time has an array of consequences ranging from low mood to irritability. Furthermore, prolonged stress can lead to workplace burnout. 

While the effect of overworking is detrimental to employees, it also has ramifications for the small businesses that employ them. Many small businesses have an all-hands-on-deck mentality. Unexpectedly losing an employee to stress leave or illness affects operations and may force others to pick up extra work. This has the potential to have a domino effect, as the employee who is asked to take on more work is susceptible to burning out as well. 

Workers are less productive

A person's ability to get things done is dependent on how well they can focus on one task at a time, be it for five minutes or an hour. However, if a person stays on task for too long, it becomes inevitable that their physical and emotional resources will be drained and the brain's ability to self-regulate and work effectively will decrease. Once the brain tires, the quality of an employee's output will diminish. 

Taking time away from work allows for the brain to refuel; a factor that is crucial to high-quality output. In short, this means that the longer an employee works, the less productive they are. In a small business, low productivity has far-reaching effects. This could mean that employees miss key deadlines or present work that is below standard because their brain is unable to produce work at the expected quality. 

Workers are less creative

The effect of not taking vacations has an array of repercussions for both employees and employers. While overworking can lead to low mood and poor productivity, it also impacts a person's creativity. 

Work environments can stifle creativity. Going to the same place every day, seeing the same people and the same decorations hardly fuels creativity. This makes it hard for employees to generate new ideas, formulate new business approaches or foster problem-solving techniques. 

Additionally, it isn't just the working environment that can hamper creativity. Vast amounts of pressure that individuals can experience when they forgo a vacation also limits a person's ability to not only be creative but also to feel inspired. 

Taking a vacation is a way to refuel and thus relax, encouraging creativity to blossom. Diminished creativity is a problem for every workplace be it a law firm or publishing house. If your employees are feeling stifled, they can't access the part of their brain that assists the process of solving problems by coming up with new solutions. Furthermore, a company may struggle to grow if employees are unable to come up with new ideas that will generate new business. 

How can small businesses help employees take vacation time? 

Encouraging employees to use their accrued paid time off doesn't have to come at the expense of an employer's business. Rather, by implementing a few smart policies, employers can reap the benefits of refreshed employees without scrambling to find job cover. This can be done by having a generous leave policy and the ability to call on part-time workers to fill in while your full-time staffers are on vacation. 

Offer unlimited PTO

When employers hear the term unlimited PTO, many think that this gives employees free rein to abuse their employers' generosity. Rather, research has found that employees take the time they feel they need and worry about being seen as abusing the policy. 

Companies with an unlimited PTO policy have noted an increase in vacation days, however, their productivity also increases. This is mainly due to the fact that employees put more effort into their work leading up to a vacation because they know a break is coming. On the other hand, employees also work better after using PTO as they are recharged and ready to work again. 

Encourage employees to use their vacation days 

Now that you know the importance of time off to employees and a businesses' operations, you might want to encourage your staff to use their vacation days. Employers can do this while also increasing productivity. One way this can be done is by offering an incentive, such as additional days of PTO or a cash equivalent, to the employee who completes the most work or does the best work – it is up to the employer. 

Either way, this kind of incentive is a win-win. Employers enjoy greater employee productivity and employees are rewarded for their work. 

Final remarks about time off

A common misconception is that when research suggests that employees need vacation time to thrive, this means they need months off work. The reality is that a change of scenery and even a short break from their regular working routine pays dividends. 

Employees are motivated to work harder when they can tell themselves that a well-deserved break is just around the corner. Subsequently, the business will benefit from having well-rested employees who produce exceptional work.

How Retail Stores Can Use New Tech

Posted: 05 Sep 2019 09:00 AM PDT

The digitization scene is exploding onto the global arena. Working in both the software and, most recently, the e-commerce space, I have heard the following statements in way too many conversations: "Brick-and-mortar is dead," "It's all e-commerce from now on," and my personal favorite, "Why do you still shop at stores? Just order online!"

While I am one of the strongest proponents of technology and do endorse the fact that the e-commerce space is here to stay, instore and e-commerce are two completely different and distinct shopping experiences.

But the bigger concern here is why are both established and less-established conventional store owners having such a hard time adjusting to technology and the massive advantages that it offers them? It is because rather than seeing technology as an evolution of their business model, they see it as a disrupter.

Retailers implement technology to avoid disruption

There is no easy way to say it. Right now, a lot of the technology adoption being done globally – both instore and outside of it – is being done simply to avoid disruption. I am not one to argue with the evolution of an environment, but for a lot of us who are trying to organically evolve and innovate certain business practices, the fear of pending disruption causes massive anxiety in business owners. This pushes them – and their teams – to quickly overhaul certain aspects of the business and push for KPIs that should not be expected at such a nascent stage.

An example of this is the e-commerce scene in Pakistan. As it is evolving, the necessary digital landscape is gradually arriving in this market, which is why there is a need to find and fund future-proof, hybrid business models. These models need to take into account that certain aspects of the conventional retail journey can be digitized, while others need to be looked at carefully before investments are made. 

Editor's note: Need an e-commerce website design service for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.

 

E-commerce is growing but differs from physical shopping

Expanding on my point above, you as a business owner or key decision-maker must understand your current environment and what sort of disruption your market should expect. In 2017, global e-commerce represented around $2.3 trillion in sales and is expected to hit $4.5 trillion by 2021, according to a Statista report.

But if we examine the US market with respect to this data, e-commerce currently represents around 10% of retail sales. Although this number is growing, brick-and-mortar retail is not going away either!

I base this on two basic things; numbers and logic. There is too much physical infrastructure (in the forms of shops, midlevel stores, malls and high-end outlets) and years – not just decades but millenniums – of physical shopping experiences for digital to so quickly replace it.

Long story short, physical stores are here to stay because the sensory experience that physical shopping provides is not something consumers will let go of easily. The value proposition for fullscale digitization has to be massive with discounts, faster deliveries and service. While good, current offerings are not enough to completely move people from the physical to the virtual.

Bridging the gap between physical and e-commerce stores

We've established that physical stores are not going anywhere, but that doesn't mean that e-commerce is dead; all the numbers point towards its growth. Right now, physical and virtual stores are fighting for a larger chunk of consumer purchases in a nonsensical tug of war where there can be no clear winners.

The solution is technology. As I have stated earlier in this article, the adoption of technology needs to be an organic and seamless journey. As such, the amalgamation of the physical and virtual storefronts needs to be a natural alliance. We now have the tech to connect with customers and build a two-way communication process. Here are examples of new startups that are evolving the way a storefront can and should function.

  • Companies like Proximate are guiding consumers to stores and shelves across the Middle East through a Bluetooth beacon-based mobile application. The apps let people know of deals, discounts and experiences around them (through the concept of nearables) and will also alert shop owners to let them know which campaigns brought traffic to their storefront. There are other firms like ShopKick that are doing similar things in other parts of the world.  
  • Another good example is a company called Retail Zipline. This communications software helps retailers coordinate their brick-and-mortar stores and boost employee engagement. It is a brilliant example of technology helping build and streamline operational processes for brick-and-mortar firms.
  • Amazon Go is an example of how an e-commerce giant saw efficacy in building a digital-led brick-and-mortar store. Customers just pick up what they want and walk out, and their mobile phones take care of the scanning, invoicing and payments. The result is a seamless, digital-led, physical purchase process that isn't intrusive and lets consumers bypass standing in long queues and fumbling around with change and credit cards at checkout counters.
  • Finally, Deligram is innovation at its finest. A young entrepreneur realized the potential that both online and offline models had, with respect to his environment, and put the best pieces together to build the future of retail. Out of Bangladesh, this is by far the best example of how retailers can use technology to elevate their current practices.

Examples like these should help you understand how each channel has a purpose and is a beneficial part of the organic omnichannel retail experience you build for your customers.

Another thing to understand is that now new technology practices exist that can help transverse your current geographic limitations. With drop-shipping firms at your disposal, you now have the capacity to open your virtual doors to any global destination.

Using retail technology organically

I know for some this might be understating the entire digital movement and its disruptive potential, but to organically grow any technology or movement we have to allow it to evolve and run its natural course.

The internet took almost 40 years to become mainstream, but now we can't imagine life without it. It functions as a utility because it organically grew into that role. A massive community of developers, content creators and entrepreneurs built use-cases for its success and scalability.

With respect to evolving the e-commerce ecosystem, this is where we are right now, where storefront owners need to experiment with a series of technologies and find their fit – with respect to their wallets, their current technology landscape and their vision of their current/future business objectives.

How A/B Testing Your Ads Improves Conversion

Posted: 05 Sep 2019 08:00 AM PDT

With digital marketing being more important for commercial success right now than ever before, it should be of little surprise that businesses and budding startups around the world are flocking to websites like Facebook and Google to reach more customers. Despite the obvious importance of digital marketing techniques, however, there's been a serious drought of reliable strategies that businesses can leverage without spending too much money.

One cost-effective, simple technique that many business owners may be unfamiliar with is A/B testing. Here's how A/B testing your ads improves conversion and streamlines your entire marketing process.

What is A/B testing?

Before you can enlist the help of A/B testing, you need to understand what it is. To put it simply, A/B testing is the process whereby a business splits its audience into two groups, exposes them to two different ad campaigns, and determines which campaign was the most effective. Sometimes called "split marketing," A/B testing can help you figure out which messages are worth broadcasting to the masses and which are best left ignored if you don't want to alienate or anger customers.

It's imperative to understand that A/B testing must be a controlled process if you want to enjoy the fruits of your labor. This means have an A audience that's roughly the same size as your B audience, for instance, and understanding that you can't change too many variables between your ad campaigns if you want your data to be sound and useful when the testing is done. Far too often, business owners conduct A/B testing that supposedly produces results but in reality, simply waste their time, money, and creative energy.

To avoid making the same foolish mistakes that have thwarted the commercial ambitions of countless others, you should take some time to read up on the most common A/B testing mistakes and how to avoid them. Running too many split tests at once, for instance, seems like a clever way to gather tons of data in a short period of time; in reality, however, this technique will backfire and produce shoddy results that won't be particularly helpful to your business. Similarly, closing monitoring the timing of your A/B testing is essential, as comparing two different time periods or refusing to allow a test to run for a long enough period will invalidate the entire exercise.

Editor's note: Need online marketing services for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you with free information.

 

Pay special attention to Facebook

Facebook isn't a particularly popular company these days; its brand has suffered drastically due to many data breaches, for instance, and founder Mark Zuckerberg hasn't exactly been reassuring in his congressional testimonies. Nevertheless, Facebook remains a gargantuan force in the world of online advertising. The truth of the matter is that you simply need the platform if you're interested in reaching a large, worthwhile number of customers with your expensive ad campaigns.

Entrepreneurs who are considering A/B testing should pay special attention to Facebook, where it's easy to make small mistakes that add up over time. Familiarizing yourself with the ins and outs of Facebook A/B testing, which includes brushing up on some A/B testing errors unique to Facebook's platform, should be your starting point if you're unfamiliar with this area of marketing.

Outside of Facebook's peculiar domain, there are some standard A/B testing tips which can help you in almost any situation. As you peruse these tips, pay attention to how you might apply them to your ads, as no business is the same and not all A/B testing guidelines can be applied to your situation without some minor editing beforehand.

Don't forget the text

So, what should business owners pay attention to when it comes to relying on A/B testing to boost their conversion rates? First and foremost, don't make the silly mistake of ignoring keywords, as the keywords the ad displays are often some of the most crucial elements of your marketing campaign. Conducting research or purchasing expensive research from someone else may not seem an alluring option, but if you don't know what kind of keywords to rely on throughout your A/B testing, you may as well not waste your money in the first place.

Similarly, other textual elements of the advertisement are vitally important. You should be A/B testing your headlines, for instance, especially if you are offering curated deals, as these are often the only things that readers actually pay attention to as a huge sum of data scrolls across their social media feed or email inbox. Outside of the textual elements like headlines and keywords, you'll also want to pay close attention to the technical aspect of your marketing strategy. For instance, when customers do finally click on your ads, which landing page are they directed to?

Running A/B testing on various landing pages to determine which ones have the most positive impact on potential customers is a great way to ensure a return on your digital investment. Far too many entrepreneurs ignore this, often because they don't understand the importance of a good landing page. If business owners use their test data to figure out which landing pages customer prefer, they will enjoy better conversion rates.

Know how to monitor your results

This final tip may sound simple, but many entrepreneurs ignore it. When it comes to monitoring your results and keeping track of the data you're collecting, don't be afraid to invest in professional assistance. After all, if you're not a data analyst you may find it difficult or downright impossible to meaningfully interpret A/B testing results, which are data-heavy. In addition to learning how to interpret your results, you also need to be able to share clean, easily accessible data that you can tap into on-demand with your team, as siloing your results away into a secretive corner won't help anyone.

Depending on how much traffic you get, you may also want to hold back on reading through your results right away. If you have high-traffic web pages, you may wish to allow your A/B testing to run for a few days before trying to cherry-pick useful results, as rushing things could invalidate your testing. You have to have enough data of a good enough quality before it can be of any use to your budding digital marketing operation. Never, ever be ready to declare a certain technique a winner until you're entirely confident that you've accumulated enough data to be certain of your results.

A/B testing is immensely useful, but far too many entrepreneurs are allowing split testing to fall by the wayside as they pursue other cheaper and faster methods of vetting their digital ads. If you actually invest enough time, money, and creative effort into A/B testing, however, you'll find that the results are well worth the hard work you put into it in the first place. As always, you shouldn't fret when it comes to hiring outside expertise if you lack the ability to conduct A/B testing yourself; after all, these third-party gurus could end up saving you tons of money in the long run. Keep these tips in mind, and soon you're A/B testing will be bolstering your conversion rate in no time.
Posted by: at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)