In today’s evolving and digitizing world, people constantly provide their personal information and details to websites and other applications while using the internet. To avoid misuse of this information for malicious purposes, online privacy is crucial.
Online privacy is all about limiting the website’s and third party’s access to user’s data and information. It is the level of security and privacy protection a user has while browsing the internet. Online privacy services include a range of protocols, technologies, and concepts used to provide privacy protection to individuals on the internet.
Online or digital privacy is not just an issue with huge organizations and businesses. Small businesses and their customers are also targeted by online attackers and cybercriminals.
Importance of Online Privacy for Small Businesses
Several small businesses do not take the necessary steps and measures to protect their websites and limit their exposure to security breaches. Because of this reason, small businesses are easy targets for cybercriminals.
Privacy is of utmost importance for small businesses, as cybercriminals and hackers tend to target them more because of fewer security measures incorporated into their systems.
For example, a Reseller Hosting company’s security owned by an individual or web professional that has purchased web Hosting Reseller plans depends on the security provided by their hosting provider. As a Hosting Reseller, you handle your client’s private information and sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, contact numbers, invoices, orders, etc. If this customer data is not secured, it significantly threatens your business’s online privacy, hampering customer trust.
If your website’s privacy protection measures and strategies aren’t robust and strong enough, malicious software and ransomware threats could attack your website, negatively affecting your business credibility, reputation, trust, sales, and SEO performance.
Thus, the importance of internet privacy for your small business is extremely crucial. Let us understand how you can protect your website’s online privacy.
How can I Protect My Small Business’s Online Privacy?
According to the National CyberSecurity Alliance’s Executive Director, almost half of the cyber attacks happen on small businesses. This is because small businesses are easier to target and hack due to a lack of privacy and security measures.
To ensure your business website does not fall prey to such attacks, here are some ways to protect your business’s and your customer’s online privacy.
- Use two-factor authentication (2FA)
Technological advancements have made it easier and simpler to guess passwords. Hackers use tools and software to predict and test thousands of password combinations every second. These tools expose around 90% of passwords. Hence, having a strong password is just not enough for online privacy.
Ensuring that every business platform that requires login, including website login, email login, banking, etc., comes with 2FA or two-factor authentication is crucial. In addition, 2FA comes with an extra layer of privacy protection such as SMS verification, confirmation request, or PIN sent to the user’s mobile number in real-time to boost security.
- Add a firewall
Firewalls protect more than your website and emails. They act as the first line of defence against any cybercriminal and other malicious activities. Firewalls monitor threats from different business connections such as VoIP, email, video streaming, etc.
Firewalls work and operate continuously, unlike many other security tools, providing higher levels of security to your business website. In addition, firewalls use advanced caching methods and technologies to enhance a website’s speed and performance.
Thus, installing a firewall ensures robust and cost-effective security solutions for businesses that improve a website’s security and performance.
- Use SSL Certificates for HTTPS security
SSL is one of the most secure and vital security measures for websites. SSL provides an encrypted and secure connection between the user’s browser and the website’s server, protecting this transmitted data between the user and the website against hackers and other online threats.
SSL Certificates ensure that the online interactions between a user and website remain private. Websites with SSL Certificates have their URLs prefixed with the HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure). In addition, a padlock icon is also displayed before the URL, ensuring visitors that the website is secure and highly credible.
In addition, Google warns users before navigating to websites without an SSL, alerting them about the website being “insecure.” Therefore, SSL Certificates not only protect your customer’s data and ensure business credibility but also help your website rank high in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) position.
- Encrypt your business emails
When it comes to sending sensitive and private information over the internet, email attachments and files aren’t the safest choices. For this reason, email encryption is used to protect confidential information from prying eyes.
Email encryption software makes sure that only the email sender and its recipient can access, view, or download the files and other information shared through the email. This email encryption software is ideal for business communications between customers or clients and a company, sending and receiving banking details, invoices, and other business information.
- Limit or block cookies
While surfing over the internet, several cookies work in the background, gathering several pieces of information and personal data. Cookies save information without the user’s consent, which is something to worry about as it impacts computer privacy.
We don’t always know what information these cookies are gathering, and they can even gather passwords or other sensitive information. So to protect your computer and online privacy, you must follow these measures regularly:
- Delete your computer cookies regularly
- Avoid cookies by using a search engine that does not use cookies
- Turn off or refuse accepting cookies from websites
Summing Up
Everyone needs to take online or internet privacy seriously as it affects every small and big business, and its customers. Cyber threats and online attacks are common and mostly target small businesses, and if proper and reliable security measures are not incorporated, it can lead to sensitive and confidential data getting hacked and leaked, resulting in loss of customers, business credibility, and revenue.
Thus, having a robust privacy policy for your online business is necessary to sustain business continuity and reputation.
However, the primary and crucial step to ensure online business security is choosing the right and reliable web hosting provider. So, whether you wish to host your online business or start your own web hosting business, we recommend checking out the web hosting services offered by ResellerClub. They offer high-performing and secure hosting plans at affordable ResellerClub pricing. So, check out their solutions and choose a suitable plan for your business today.
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