Small businesses in Indonesia should start to take cybersecurity more seriously. With many big names becoming the victims of cyber threats and the mostly absence of a response from the government, it becomes a dreading situation for a brand to become a victim of cyber threats in Indonesia. This article will explore the cyber awareness that small business owners should have.
President Joko Widodo in 2020 stated that cyber threats have the potential to cause economic losses of up to 5 trillion dollars. The seventh President of Indonesia would continue that digital security, especially data privacy and cyber awareness needs to be put into priority. Supported by the economic losses caused by COVID-19, the Indonesian government made UMKM (Usaha Mikro, Kecil, dan Menengah) its ray of hope to bring back the country’s economy. This would also mean transforming traditional small businesses into businesses that are capable of operating technology.
Indonesia Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said in 2020 that there were only eight million small business owners who utilize technology, and the rest of the 56 million owners were still out of touch from transforming their businesses. These huge numbers are, of course, easy targets for many unresponsible cyber actors.
Although some UMKMs do not really need that much cyber protection, for those who already utilize e-banking services, have websites, and stored their customer data with cloud services, cyber threats are something not to be underestimated. In their 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report, Verizon reported that small businesses are the top target for cyber threats and filled 43% of all data breaches in that year. These could be seen as the result of the 57% of small business owners who think their businesses are not the target of cyber threats.
Here are some tips for small business owners to increase their employees’ cyber awareness:
- Train employee
For a start, business owners do not have to train their employees with all the advanced information. As small business owners, it is better to start training employees about phishing and malware, using secure networks, and making strong passwords. It is important for employees to know that it is dangerous to click a link from an untrusted source. Always double-check information before doing anything with it.
- Update your software
Leave an unsupported-old operational system. For example, Windows has dropped its support for Windows 7, so it will be wise for a business owner to upgrade the OS in the office to a more updated system, like Windows 11 or 10. An unsupported OS means that the system would not receive any updates or security patches anymore, this will make the OS more vulnerable to any cyber attacks. This also goes to software or any applications the business uses, like antivirus, data backup applications, and so on.
- Use multi-factor authentication (MFA)
This move will secure the already existing security even more. Multi-factor authentication means when an employee wants to log into a working account, they would need to prove the person who is trying to log in is really them. The login could be proven with a registered number, clicking a link sent by email, or other ways.
- Backup all documents and information
Backup is a normal business practice. Whether it’s small meeting minutes or a memorandum of understanding with a big brand, they all need to be copied and backed up. This will come in handy when a cyber attack happens, and the attack took all the important data.
There are more ways to deal with and prepare for cyber attacks as small business owners, but it needs to be remembered that small businesses have a higher risk to be affected by cyber attacks. Small businesses also need more time to recover from cyber attacks since most of them do not have massive resources (this will be a big problem if the data were taken as a ransom) and preparations as big businesses.
Read our other works:
• Everything You Need to Know About Zero-Day Attack
• Domain-domain Baru ZIP Memunculkan Debat di Antara Para Ahli Cybersecurity
• Which One Do You Need, VPN or DNS?
References:
• https://www.bulat.co.id/ekonomi/pemerintah-percepat-transformasi-digital-keamanan-siber-sudah-mumpuni
• https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/articles/small-business-cyber-security-and-data-breaches/
• https://www.cyber.gov.au/resources-business-and-government/essential-cyber-security/small-business-cyber-security/small-business-cyber-security-guide
