Computer Security for Small Businesses Essay

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Information Technology Security for Small Business

The need for protecting a business's information is crucial in the modern business world regardless of the size of the business. In light of the increased technological advancements that generate numerous threats and vulnerabilities, protecting a business's information is as significant as safeguarding every other asset. Actually, businesses are facing the need to protect information in a similar manner like safeguarding employees, property, and products. Generally, business information is valuable and at risk, which contributes to the need for information security. While small businesses may not have as much information need as large businesses, the need to protect such information is vital for these businesses. This process requires understanding the business need, identification of potential threats and vulnerabilities, and developing appropriate measures and controls to ensure protection.

Business Need for Information Security:

As previously mentioned, small businesses need to make Information Technology security a major priority as a means for protecting these businesses. The business need for information security is fueled by the fact that these businesses make security decisions on a daily basis. Some of the most common security decisions made by these businesses include locking their doors, fitting alarm systems, and ensuring that trustworthy employees work behind their counters (Porter, 2009).

The second factor demonstrating the business need for information security is likelihood of these businesses to lose their entire businesses if they lack effective protection measures. When a small business is careless about information technology security, it is likely to lose the entire business because of the impact on the company's reputation. In essence, small businesses are usually open for business as they want customers to come in and make purchases. If these businesses are careless about safeguarding their information, they damage their reputation and lessen the number of new and return customers.

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This in turn contributes to loss of profits, which contributes to significant implications on the business operations. In some cases, these businesses face lawsuits if such carelessness contributes to loss of a customer's personal information. Therefore, ensuring IT security enables small businesses to protect themselves against loss of profit, enhance their reputation, and lessen the costs of litigation.

Information Security Threats and Vulnerabilities:

Even though technological developments have numerous advantages for individuals and businesses, the cyberspace is increasingly becoming a dangerous place to be because of the ever increasing information security threats and vulnerabilities. Similar to large businesses, small businesses are facing the need to pay more attention to the dangers of cyber crime in order to avoid dangers brought by carelessness. While small business owners are experts in their respective business areas, they have minimal knowledge about computers, software, and networks. There is a wide range of information security threats and vulnerabilities that are carried out by cyber criminals.

These threats and vulnerabilities can be classified into two i.e. external and internal threats. The external threats are carried out by cyber criminals and information warriors, hackers, hacktivists, and experimenters and vandals (Porter, 2009). Since they are amateurs, experimenters and vandals carry out their activities to make a reputation for themselves or for the thrill. On the contrary, hacktivists are driven by personal or political agenda while cyber criminals are driven by financial gain. In contrast, internal threats and vulnerabilities come from within the organization and account for 80% of information security problems experienced by small businesses. Similar to the external threats, the target of internal threats is to access an organization's systems and information.

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