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ID rethink in website cyber protection

It's time to take personal information and identity seriously says Director of website platform Oncord, Scott McNaught, with cyber protection now firmly on the small business agenda.

The business disruption to a bookkeeper of a cyber attack outage can be significant. System downtime plus the dollars spent on IT rectification, new software/hardware, ransom cost, legal costs etc can be crippling to a small business owner like a bookkeeper. With cyber security the hot button topic in the accounting and bookkeeping arena, Scott McNaught of the website platform Oncord, urges the industry to act now to protect their identity online.

This has become even more important with ASIC’s stricter principals for small businesses around mandatory data breech reporting, which is a sure signal that business owners need to give the issue more attention.

Scott confirms that our focus should be improving our personal security around the ‘vectors’ or paths that attackers can navigate to get into our devices and apps.

The first critical step is to go back to all those apps and devices to update passwords, making sure none contain dictionary words and have two factor identification.

“We know how vulnerable we are by using passwords easily linked to us,” said Scott. “A lot of automated hackers get in using family or pet names and dates of birth".

“Now is the time to stop putting it off and change all those passwords and set up two factor identification on those as well. There’s plenty of random password generators and secure apps to store those passwords,” said Scott.

Scott continued with a to-do list that needs all bookkeepers and small business owners’ attention right away to prioritise their cyber security.

ONCORD’s TOP 5 MUST-DO CYBER SECURITY TIPS

• Update passwords for all apps and devices - Don’t share the same password between different login accounts. Stay away from dictionary words. Use two-factor authentication.
• Software updates – Windows is critical. Unless you have Windows 11, which updates automatically, you’ll need to run updates. Look to upgrade this software so you don’t get caught short.
• Older computers and devices – Anything over 5 years old could leave your business vulnerable. Consider updating today.
• Wordpress website? - Run updates every month. This typically doesn’t update automatically, leaving businesses open to be exploited. Using a Cloud solution like Oncord, means you don’t have to manually update.
• Web hosting – make sure that your web host uses a web application firewall to prevent common exploits. Ensure customer data is encrypted in transit and at rest (when stored).  Ensure your backups are encrypted and stored securely.

To find out more about Oncord and how they can help with your website needs please click here.