The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has suggested some easy-to-implement preventative measures that small businesses can take to strengthen their cybersecurity. The FTC suggested that small businesses should:
- make sure their staff is using best practices to fend off ransomware attacks, such as creating local, offline, encrypted backups of business-critical information,
- have taken the actions recommended by the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency to address the growing threat of ransomware,
- raised awareness or refreshed their staff’s knowledge of cybersecurity,
- provided authentication procedures and implemented policies for long and complex authentication passwords.
In addition, the FTC has made available materials that small businesses can incorporate into their internal security training programs, as well as a ‘Cybersecurity for Small Business’ package created in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Small Business Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security that includes stand-alone modules on topics including ransomware.