MBA2064 How to Protect Your Business From Hackers

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I first got started with my software company. I was annoyed at how much time and effort I had to spend protecting my company, protecting my software from those horrible, horrible hackers out there. And I was like, what's wrong with these people? Why don't they just go and do something else, do something productive? And I realized I'm wasting my breath. Instead of trying to question why that's how things are in the world, just protect yourself and don't worry about it. I like to start there because a lot of us, we waste a lot of energy wishing things weren't a certain way. Sometimes you just got to accept it and do what you got to do so you don't have to worry about it. And that's what today's lesson is all about. Now, regardless if you run a software, if you have a full online business, even if you just have a website or even just use web tools, you're going to need to implement these tips to protect your business. You invest so much time, money and effort to build your business, to run your business, to make it your livelihood. Don't make it easy for people to tear it down. Okay, so the first thing you want to do is anything you do online, and I mean anything personal and business, whether it's your own website portal, whether it's your email, whether it's your hosting, whether it's a service or tool you use, always use two step authentication. Two step authentication is basically what it sounds like. It's two steps to log into an account. So you might log in via an email or password and then it'll prompt you, hey, we just sent you an sms. Please put the code that we sent you on the sms. Always have this on in any presence you have online, whether it's personal or business, your Facebook account, any social account, for that matter, any kind of services or Tools you use to run your business, your email, like I mentioned. And the reason why is because it's very hard for somebody to hack an account that requires two step authentication because they have to have access to multiple things to be able to do this. Like they need to have access to the password for your email, plus they have to have access to your phone to get the sms. Some tools use an authentication app on your phone, which is another kind of way to authenticate other than sms. Some people have an email verification, so they get a code in their email and they verify that way. Make sure you do this right now. This is going to solve like half of all your hacker problems. Okay? Also make it the practice of anybody that works for you, whether they're a freelancer, an employee, somebody who's helping out, an intern, somebody who's just kind of doing some gig work for you. It doesn't matter if they're going to use your account, if they're going to have an account, if they're going to be using anything that has anything to do with your business or any kind of tools, they have to implement two step authentication. Number two, use a company domain email for you and your team members. This is going to cost you some money. $5 per user per month using Google's business email. But people don't understand that many, many hackers will go with a common email and try to hack those emails instead. Like mail.com, hotmail.com and not domain emails. That's one thing. The other thing is that when you're a new join your team. The first thing we do, and this is what you should do as well, is sign them up for a company email. So say, for example, Justine joins your team and you create a justinecompanyx.com email. Your company being company X, that's the first thing she gets as an employee. And any tool she uses for her work is using that email. Uses that email. Why? Because if for any reason she gets terminated, she leaves all that kind of stuff. It should never be linked to her personal email. Okay. Why? Because she can do a password reset and get back into her account. Not that Justine is some sort of evil person, but somebody can hack into her account or hack into her email, her personal email, and get into your business. So if she leaves the company, you can automatically just suspend the email address from your admin and there's no way for them to reset passwords and get them via email anymore because that email account doesn't exist. So having a central way to lock them out of any tools that they use because they sign up using that company. Email gives you that peace of mind that if somebody comes or goes from your company, they cannot add any kind of vulnerability to your business. Number three, and this one is huge, especially for those who deal with customer service or deal with customers that are sending them emails or messages. And that's implementing a no click policy. We have this policy in our company where if any of our team members receives an email from outside the company, outside their team members, whether it's a vendor, whether it's a customer, whether it's somebody who's pitching them something and they send them a link. We don't click on links because these can be phishing attempts, these can be viruses. There can be so many ways that people can get through and get into your device by giving you a link. We simply reply to the person, say, we are not allowed to click on links. Please describe what this is or send us a screenshot or whatever that is. And that protects everybody from trying to decide if this is a safe link. Sometimes spammers or hackers, what they do is they write the link, but then they hyperlink it with a different link. So it looks like you're clicking on a normal link, that's maybe a normal website, like an article on CNN.com but then when you click it, it actually is hyperlinked to something that's malicious. So a no click link policy is what we have and I recommend you do the same. My next tip, which is actually something that a lot of people don't realize is a problem and are causing them headaches, One of the easiest ways to prevent headaches is don't sign up for free tools. Yep, I said it as much as you can. If you can sign up for the lowest plan of a product, that's going to give you more protection than a free tool. Why? Because when there are companies that offer free plans or free tools, they're more vulnerable than something that has a paywall. This is why companies like Facebook, for example, which are huge companies that have tons of money and tons of staff, they are vulnerable to data breaches all the time because the barrier of entry, of getting into Facebook is so low. You can sign up for free, get in, you don't need a credit card, you don't need anything. And it's just so simple to get inside of their walls. And therefore hackers find an easy way to move around and collect data. So try not to be on a platform that has this like, plethora of free accounts. I prefer to pay and be protected because when you have a service that is only paid, where all their options are just paid options, hackers don't go there because they have to go through other barriers, SSL certificates and payment processing and they have to have a valid credit card and they're going to get charged and it's just not worth it for them. They just move on and go somewhere that's free. So I prefer to pay for my services when I can. My next one is in the same kind of genre and that is if you can, as much as possible, minimize the tools you use online, only use the tools that you actually need and use regularly. If you're not using something, if you have an account with somebody or something that you're not using, delete that account. Don't leave yourself vulnerable with information, with data. Remove that account from their database. The less tools you're using, the less headaches. Obviously you want to make sure you have enough tools to run your business. Don't be overly cautious, but just be mindful of the fact that if you're not using something, get rid of it, even if it's free.

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So we talked about a lot today to protect your business. We talked about two step authentication. We talked about using a company domain email for you and your team members. We talked about the no click policy. We talked about using paid tools, not free tools, as much as possible. And to lessen the number of tools that you have to have less headaches. I have one more tip that I highly recommend. You got to be super vigilant and super careful with any financial type of apps or websites or tools. So we're talking about anything that has your banking information, your actual bank, PayPal, Stripe, those types of things. Make sure, of course you have two step authentication. Make sure you're not on a shared device like at the library or an Internet cafe. When you're overseas, make sure you're not on a network that is shared at like Starbucks. I actually prefer to use my phone's data and just use it As a hotspot, that's a lot more secure. And when it comes to your financial tools, I actually recommend you use their apps on your phone over a browser on your computer. Because browsers can be hacked, browsers can have leaked information through Chrome, extensions and all different kinds of things. The app is a lot more secure, especially if you're on an iPhone. IPhones are really secure in terms of data and privacy. Not that Android is not secure, it's just iPhone has invested a lot of time and money into making sure that it is secure. It's very hard for you to install anything onto an iPhone that is not approved by Apple. And being off the wifi on your data is worth it. This is why when I travel, I always roam on my phone. I do not choose not to roam. I don't use wifi in public areas. I don't know, just in case I need to get into my apps whether they're financial or not. And one more final tip. Use a VPN. I use ExpressVPN. There's a ton of different VPNs out there. This is just the one I use. They're all pretty much the same. I pay an annual fee of like $100 but it means when I'm somewhere where I am not at home, in my home network or my office, I always turn on my vpn. Make sure I'm protected, my IP is being masked and that I'm not vulnerable. Especially if I'm using some sort of wi fi that's not my own. Like an office or a co working space WI fi. I VPN it. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. I didn't want to scare you with this episode. I wanted to inform you so that you could do some simple things to really protect yourself and deter hackers. Hackers don't want to go through hoops. They're going to go to the people that ignore my advice or don't even listen to the show or don't do anything to protect their business, their profiles, their account online. It's still very much the wild west on the Internet. So you got to make sure that you have your backup, that you are aware of your vulnerabilities and you shore them up. Thanks so much for listening to the hundred dollar NBA show. Hit, subscribe or follow to support the show. To let the algorithms on whatever app you use know that hey, this show's alright. I smashed that subscribe button. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. If you would like to work in public, at cafes, in co working spaces, at airports, things like that. You got to be super vigilant about your computer, about your laptop, about your iPad. If you ever step away, even for a second, close the lid, lock your computer, lock your iPad. I don't even leave it to chance by forgetting or thinking I put it to sleep or shut off my monitor. I close the actual lid of my laptop to prevent any chance of it being opened up and somebody having access to my computer. On my phone, I always have the auto lock on. I have it at 15 seconds. So if I don't do anything on my phone for 15 seconds, it'll just lock the phone right away. So I never forget to lock it. Hope today's lesson helped and I hope to see you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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