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Standaard privacy."],"People before profits":["Mensen vóór winst"],"Security through transparency":["Veiligheid door openheid"],"The best Proton Mail ${ BLACK_FRIDAY } deals":["De beste ${ BLACK_FRIDAY }-deals voor Proton Mail"],"The world’s only community- supported email service":["'s Werelds enige door de community ondersteunde e-mailservice"]},"specialoffer:limited":{"${ hours } hour":["${ hours } uur","${ hours } uur"],"${ hoursLeft }, ${ minutesLeft } and ${ secondsLeft } left":["Nog ${ hoursLeft }, ${ minutesLeft } en ${ secondsLeft } resterend"],"${ minutes } minute":["${ minutes } minuut","${ minutes } minuten"],"${ seconds } second":["${ seconds } seconde","${ seconds } seconden"],"Limited time offer":["Aanbieding beperkt geldig"]},"specialoffer:listitem":{"Create multiple addresses":["Maak meerdere e-mailadressen aan"],"Hide-my-email aliases":["Hide-my-email-aliassen"],"Quickly unsubscribe from newsletters":["Meld u eenvoudig af voor nieuwsbrieven"],"Use your own domain name":["Gebruik uw eigen domeinnaam"]},"specialoffer:logos":{"As featured in":["Zoals te lezen in"]},"specialoffer:metadescription":{"Get an encrypted email that protects your privacy":["Kies voor beveiligde e-mail die uw privacy beschermt"]},"specialoffer:metatitle":{"Proton Mail Black Friday Sale - Up to 40% off":["Proton Mail Black Friday Sale - Tot 40% korting"]},"specialoffer:newmetadescription":{"Get up to 40% off Proton Mail subscriptions this Black Friday. Find great deals on our secure end-to-end encrypted email plans.":["Profiteer tijdens Black Friday van wel 40% korting op Proton Mail-abonnementen. Bekijk geweldige aanbiedingen voor onze veilige, end-to-end versleutelde e-mailabonnementen."]},"specialoffer:newmetatitle":{"Proton Mail Black Friday sale | Up to 40% off secure email":["Proton Mail Black Friday Sale | Tot 40% korting op veilige e-mail"]},"specialoffer:note":{"* Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first year":["*U betaalt ${ TOTAL_SUM } voor het eerste jaar"],"*Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first 2 years":["*U betaalt ${ TOTAL_SUM } voor de eerste 2 jaar"],"30-day money-back guarantee":["30 dagen niet-goed-geld-terug-garantie"],"Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first 2 years":["U betaalt ${ TOTAL_SUM } voor de eerste 2 jaar"],"Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first year":["U betaalt ${ TOTAL_SUM } voor het eerste jaar"],"You save ${ SAVE_SUM }":["U bespaart ${ SAVE_SUM }"]},"specialoffer:off":{"${ PERCENT_OFF } off":["−${ PERCENT_OFF }"]},"specialoffer:testimonial":{"I love my ProtonMail":["Ik ben fan van ProtonMail"],"My favorite email service":["Mijn favoriete e-mailservice"],"Thanks Proton for keeping us all safe in the complicated internet universe.":["Proton houdt ons allemaal veilig in het complexe internetuniversum."],"You get what you pay for. In the case of big tech, if you pay nothing, you get used. I quit using Gmail and switched to @ProtonMail":["Je krijgt waarvoor je betaalt. In het geval van Big Tech betekent 'gratis' dat je wordt gebruikt. Ik ben gestopt met Gmail en overgestapt op @ProtonMail"]},"specialoffer:time":{"Days":["Dagen"],"Hours":["Uur"],"Min":["Min"]},"specialoffer:title":{"And much more":["En nog veel meer"],"Safe from trackers":["Beschermd tegen trackers"],"Stay organized":["Blijf georganiseerd"],"Black Friday email deals":["Black Friday-deals voor e-mail"],"Don’t just take our word for it":["U hoeft ons niet te geloven"],"Make your inbox yours":["Maak uw inbox van u"],"Our story":["Ons verhaal"],"Transfer your data from Google in one click":["Zet uw gegevens van Google over met één klik"]},"specialoffer:tooltip":{"Access blocked content and browse privately. Includes ${ TOTAL_VPN_SERVERS }+ servers in ${ TOTAL_VPN_COUNTRIES }+ countries, connect up to 10 devices, access worldwide streaming services, malware and ad-blocker, and more.":["Bekijk geblokkeerde inhoud en surf privé. Met ${ TOTAL_VPN_SERVERS }+ servers in meer dan ${ TOTAL_VPN_COUNTRIES } landen, verbinding met maximaal 10 apparaten, wereldwijd toegang tot streamingdiensten, malware- en advertentieblokkering, en meer."],"Easily share your calendar with your family, friends or colleagues, and view external calendars.":["Deel uw agenda eenvoudig met uw familie, vrienden of collega's, en bekijk externe agenda's."],"Includes support for 1 custom email domain, 10 email addresses, 10 hide-my-email aliases, calendar sharing, and more.":["Ondersteuning voor 1 aangepast e-maildomein, 10 e-mailadressen, 10 hide-my-email-aliassen, gedeelde agenda's en meer."],"Includes support for 3 custom email domains, 15 email addresses, unlimited hide-my-email aliases, calendar sharing, and more.":["Ondersteuning voor 3 aangepaste e-maildomeinen, 15 e-mailadressen, onbeperkt hide-my-email-aliassen, gedeelde agenda's en meer."],"Manage up to 25 calendars, mobile apps, secured with end-to-end encryption, 1-click calendar 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The key to small business cyber security is a culture of security awareness | Proton
Small business cybersecurity is often overlooked, either due to a lack of expertise or funding. This is a mistake. Cyberattacks are costly to mitigate but potentially more costly to recover from after they occur.
There are two things cybercriminals want to steal from your employees: your organization’s data and its money. To get either of those things, usually all they have to do is invent a sufficiently persuasive con.
Fortunately, there are simple ways to stay ahead of the cybercriminals. As a data security company, we are uniquely predisposed to having a culture of cybersecurity. Even so, we have instituted policies, conducted cybersecurity awareness training sessions, and implemented systems to reinforce this culture.
In this guide, we’ll share some of our tricks and best practices that we hope can help your organization as well.
Empower a cybersecurity officer and make a plan
As with most projects in any organization, the first step is to designate someone responsible for making sure the job gets done. This person could be from your IT staff, but which department they are from matters less than their willingness to learn about cybersecurity and hold team members accountable for completing training sessions and implementing digital safety practices. The first thing your cybersecurity officer should do is conduct a threat and risk assessment. It should include a detailed overview of:
Assets— Employee data, client credit cards, trade secrets, money, etc. List the things of value your company holds, where and how they’re stored, and who has access to them currently.
Threats— Hackers, disgruntled employees, competitors, cybercriminals, governments, etc. Be as inclusive and imaginative as possible. You’ll rank these threats later when assessing risks.
Vulnerabilities — Human error, unsecured communications, poor network security, unencrypted service providers, etc. Your past experiences, knowledge of your own systems, and existing research about data breaches can help you here.
Risk — Which teams are more susceptible to threats? Which assets are most valuable? This analysis will help you decide where to focus the most energy.
Countermeasures — Cybersecurity awareness training, end-to-end encryption, access controls, data minimization, etc. Based on the information you’ve already compiled above, you can determine how to mitigate risk.
Armed with a better understanding of the assets, threats, and vulnerabilities within your organization, you can begin implementing countermeasures.
Create a cybersecurity policy and use it regularly
Your small business’s cybersecurity policy should include basic guidelines that all employees must follow. We will go into more detail about cybersecurity policies in future articles, but this should include everything from recommendations about using secure web browsers, email safety tips, VPN requirements, anti-phishing best practices, password recommendations, and more.
As part of your employee onboarding process, everyone on your team should receive a copy. However, to maintain a culture of cybersecurity awareness, cybersecurity officers should regularly refer to this document and issue periodic reminders of its contents. Managers should talk about the cybersecurity policy, too, to emphasize its importance. Your cybersecurity policy isn’t just another boilerplate HR document. Understanding it and following it is part of everyone’s job.
Hold regular cybersecurity awareness training sessions
These training sessions should happen soon after a new employee starts and then be updated periodically. The training should emphasize the most important aspects of the cybersecurity policy while also giving employees an understanding of the specific threats your management team has identified. These should be specific to your organization and to your industry. For example, if there are known threats targeting companies similar to yours through certain attack vectors, these training sessions are an excellent opportunity to educate your staff about preventing such attacks.
There are also third-party cybersecurity firms that can help you here. For instance, Sophos offers anti-phishing training simulations(nieuw venster). Your cybersecurity officer should be tasked with researching and proposing a cost-benefit analysis for contracting outside security vendors.
Some teams or individuals may be more vulnerable to attack than others based on their specialty or level of access. Network administrators, managers, and anyone handling payroll or customer data may need additional training and attention.
3 major cybersecurity best practices
There are a handful of cybersecurity practices that are so important and basic that they should be mandatory in your organization.
Use two-factor authentication (2FA)
— Turning on 2FA for every account that offers it (whether it’s your company Slack or your employee’s Proton Mail account) can help prevent account takeover, which is a major problem for companies and a common source of data exposure.
Be alert for phishing
— Phishing attacks(nieuw venster) use social engineering to entice users to click links, download attachments, or divulge login credentials in efforts to compromise their device or your network. Your employees should be trained to recognize common phishing strategies, to report suspicious emails to your small business’s cybersecurity team, and to always verify emails before clicking a link or responding.
Use strong passwords
— It’s important to use strong passwords that are less likely to be decrypted by hackers in a data breach. We have published information about how to choose a strong password(nieuw venster) for more details.
Conclusions
The most important thing to remember is that creating a workplace culture of cybersecurity awareness requires buy-in from employees at every level. If management doesn’t view cybersecurity as a priority, then lower-level employees won’t either.
Entry-level employees are often an easy target for hackers and cybercriminals because they have less training and deal with less sensitive information. Yet the information they have in their accounts can be used to devise more damaging social engineering attacks. Junior employees with access to funds can also be more easily tricked into wiring money on behalf of a fake boss(nieuw venster) or paying bogus invoices.
The primary way to confront these threats is to ensure your employees are always on guard. If you demonstrate that cybersecurity is a priority in your organization, they will be.
Proton Mail and Proton VPN are funded by community contributions. If you would like to support our development efforts, you can upgrade to a paid plan or donate. Thank you for your support.