How can small Businesses manage and protect their devices correctly
Nowadays, when an entrepreneur decides to start a business, the very first assets they need to buy are a computer and phone. This is true for any business in the modern world, as our devices are what connect us with our teams, customers, providers, banks, and everything else.
Once a business grows, the addition of new devices to its work fleet increases exponentially. For every new employee hired, at least one new device is added to an organization. At the same time, this also adds one more device with access to sensitive data and the potential of being used to compromise an entire business.
Unfortunately, small businesses typically don’t adopt best practices and basic tools to manage and protect their devices. That is until one day a material problem arises and it becomes a massive problem.
At that moment, the amount of work required to compile a precise inventory of all devices used for work, bring them to a centralized management solution, validate what is installed on each device, ensure all operating systems and installed apps are patched, adopt an endpoint security solution (antivirus) and online security solution is massive. Not to mention the potential disruption this can cause to productivity.
Of the top 10 Cyber Security Tips for Small Business issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), six can be easily achieved by adopting a good solution for device management and security:
- Protect information, computers, and networks from cyber attacks
- Provide firewall security for your Internet connection
- Create a mobile device action plan
- Make backup copies of important business data and information
- Control physical access to your computers and create user accounts for each employee
- Limit employee access to data and information, limit authority to install software.
Small businesses no longer have to suffer through poor device management and security. Managing and protecting work devices from the get-go is accessible and affordable to every business nowadays. So, when is the right moment for a small business to start to manage and protect their devices? Easy. When they buy their first device.