It seems that barely a week will go by without news breaking of some company or organisation falling foul of a data breach or cyberattack. Understandably, this leaves many small businesses wondering how they can avoid becoming the next victim.

Whilst many blogs and articles have been written that cover huge and detailed (not to mention expensive) ways of protecting valuable data, here are some tips for how you can improve your cyber security quickly, affordably and without too much expert knowledge.

Use strong passwords

Ensuring your passwords are strong and difficult to crack is absolutely essential. One way to do this (and the method favoured by the National Cyber Security Centre) is to use three random words – which is usually enough to tick off the advice of ensuring they’re ‘long enough and strong enough’. Ideally, include some numbers and punctuation for good measure as well.

Don’t use passwords

Alternatively, don’t use passwords at all. They have long been seen as one of the ‘least worst’ options, rather than the best – despite being used almost universally. Alternatives such as biometric logins can be much more secure, or two-factor authentication at the very least.

Be suspicious

Often it’s not about the IT measures you put in place but the staff training. Empowering your team to exercise suspicion when something doesn’t look quite right could be the difference between a hacker getting access or being left out in the cold.

Protect yourself

Make sure your company not just has antivirus software, but actually keeps it updated. There’s little point having these tools (and paying a tidy sum for them) if you don’t close any loopholes that open as time goes on.

Back up often

You don’t want to lose any data at any time, but the blow will be softened enormously if you’ve taken a recent backup. The hard work and potential embarrassment that would come from having to start again from scratch makes this a worthwhile investment.

Delete data

That all being said, be sure to delete data when it’s no longer relevant. Not only will this keep you GDPR compliant, it could also save money in hosting costs.

These six tips are relatively quick and easy to roll out – and will go a long way to protect your business from the most common attacks.