Small business members, when you left work yesterday did you put your computer into sleep mode or shut it down completely? Do you use the same password for everything? Are your passwords short, sweet, but easy to crack?
According to new research from the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia (COSBOA) Cyber Wardens Program, cybersecurity bad habits are prevalent among Australian small business. The research identifies that 78% of small business owners practise habits that inadvertently make them more vulnerable to cybercriminals. Five habits have been identified in particular:
- Putting computers into ‘sleep mode’ rather than shutting them down, increasing the risk of out-of-date software giving access to cyber criminals.
- Reusing the same passwords across multiple systems and platforms, using short passwords which make them easy to crack. It’s suggested that passwords should be sixteen characters long, a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols/special characters.
- Snoozing software updates
- Sharing passwords between team members.
- Deleting suspicious emails, they think could be scams without alerting their IT support provider or scamwatch.gov.au
According to scamwatch.gov.au, Australians lost more than $429 million to scams in 2023. Don’t let your business be a victim, make a new year’s resolution to improve your business’ cybersecurity habits.
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