70% of consumers take their business elsewhere after a data breach.
Nearly everyone has received a letter notifying them that their personal information has been breached during a cyber attack. How does that make you feel and how do you respond? According to a recent study conducted by HostingAdvice.com, this experience results in customers losing trust in the company and taking their business to someone else. Read the entire article here.
Think about this for a moment. Not only does a business have to deal with the tangible damage of a data breach like costs for cyber forensics, notifying by mail all potentially impacted people, and lost time for their staff, they likely will lose many of their past clients. Can your business survive losing so much? Most cannot and some sources state that more than half of small businesses suffering such an attack will be out of business within six months.
In Iowa a business is required to report data breaches. The law reads – Anyone who encounters a security breach that affects at least 500 Iowa residents must provide written notice to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division Director within five business days after notifying affected people (Iowa Code Chapter 715C). There is no way to hide the incident once it happens so prevention is paramount.
Take steps to protect your business
Rather than add a list of all the things you should do to secure your data (use strong passwords, install anti-virus, blah, blah blah), I recommend finding a business partner that is well-equipped to take responsibility for your IT security. Even if you have a person or persons responsible for IT, having a partner with a proven set of IT security tools and experts supporting them is a great strategy for a small business. Find a trustworthy, experienced partner that offers all of this in a Managed IT Services plan.
RSPN offers both Fully Managed and Co-sourced plans depending whether our client has IT staff or not. We provide all the necessary tools and expertise to improve your business IT security and support your team. We have many clients who hire us as the result of a cyber attack, most of which were preventable.
Small businesses are targets of cyber attacks more than large companies because they often have substandard security in place. Don’t be the next business sending letters to their customers notifying them of a breach. You will end up watching many of them go to your competitor. Contact us today to learn how we provide outstanding security in an affordable plan to small businesses.