What are the costs and benefits of developing cybersecurity programs in business?
Small businesses should develop cyber security programs for a number of reasons, one in particular is that a small business does not make as much money as bigger businesses. With this being said a cybercrime will hurt a small business more because of the money they could lose. Also small businesses are easy targets for criminals because as said in the NSF article many small business owners have a lack of knowledge of the threats. Every business is at risk of a cybercrime, so all businesses should get at least a little bit of protection on their business, in order to make them less susceptible. As the years go by more companies are beginning to keep information on mobile devices such as phones and laptops. Since this is the case I think something that small businesses should spend a little of their money on is mobile security. This would look for vulnerabilities in these devices allowing the business to keep track of who is able to access the information. This would allow the businesses to continue to make money because it is not being attacked through mobile devices. One other cyber security program that I would tell a small business to get is security awareness training. This is to train employees on maintaining good security practices and making sure employees know the security policies in place. I would tell them to do this program because many small businesses are family owned and sometimes people have an easier time getting a job at a small business. With this being said the owners would be able to educate their employees on having good security habits which would make sure there is a less of a chance that a cyber-attacker could easily attack the system. Overall small businesses are not going to be able to have cyber security protection on everything in their business because they simply do not make as much as the bigger businesses. Even though everything cannot be protected it would be good to have a little bit of protection to make it harder for an attacker to hack the business. As for how much a small business should spend on security I would say about 7% of their earnings should go to cyber security.
How can you tell if your computer is safe?
There is no way to tell if your computer is completely safe, but you can tell if your computer is malware infected. Some signs that your computer has been infected by malware include pop up messages, your browser homepage changed without your input, your computer crashes, your computer is getting slower, and unusual error messages pop up. These are just a few, and there are many other things that can happen to your computer if it has been infected.