There is finally some good news in the cybersecurity world. A bill meant to improve cybersecurity for small and medium businesses is currently working its way through the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support.

The Main Street Cybersecurity Act, introduced in late March, calls for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop voluntary guidelines to protect SMBs from the threats of data breach and cybercrime.

This legislation is a step in the right direction, seeing how cybercrime is growing and primarily targeting small businesses. Of course, investing in cyber coverage from CyberPolicy is a wonderful way to protect your organization against the costly effects of a cyberattack!

SMBs & the Digital Epidemic
Upon introducing the legislation, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said, \"Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but unfortunately that's exactly what makes them a prime target for hackers... These cyberattacks not only leave American consumers exposed, they can be so harmful to businesses that recovering from an attack can often times force them out of business.\"

He's not wrong. Almost 60 percent of all targeted cyberattacks strike SMBs; and 60 percent of those affected go out of business within six months! That's because SMBs simply do not have the same resources to protect themselves from digital transgressors or to recover from their assault.

Or as network engineer and white-hat hacker Bryan Seely said, "Most small business owners don't think they're at risk. As a result, it's fair to say they are indeed ill-prepared to safeguard against an attack."

The truth of the matter is that small businesses are locked in a cyberwar with malicious hackers whether they realize it or not. In fact, more than 14 million businesses have been hacked in the last 12 months! This is exactly why the Main Street Cybersecurity Act is vital to our economic wellbeing.

But while the nation waits for the legislation to pass and new guidelines to be developed by the NIST, we have pulled together a few tips to keep you, your organization and, by extension, your customers safe online.

• Educate your employees about various online threats, how to spot them and how to avoid them. Host relevant training sessions on a regular basis.
• Encourage better password protocol, including unique sign-in credentials for each and every service used.
• Enable automatic updates to reduce the risk of insecure systems, software gaps and corrupted add-ons.
• Avoid fishy emails, attachments, links and downloads as these may contain malware or phishing scams.
• Employ a network firewall to keep your internal data transfers safe and private.
• Advise out-of-office and remote employees to use a virtual private network or VPN for the same reason.
• Use public Wi-Fi with extreme caution; avoid sending unencrypted messages, important files or banking information over free Wi-Fi.
 

Finally, you'll want to invest in cyber coverage insurance from a reputable provider like CyberPolicy. For pennies a day, you can safeguard your business against vicious cyber crooks, data breach, class-action lawsuits and so much more. What are you waiting for? Get your free quote today!