For years, cybersecurity was something many business owners were pretty comfortable leaving to the IT team.
I don’t think we have that luxury anymore.
You don’t need to understand every piece of technology protecting your business.
But if you own or run a business, there are a few questions I think you should be able to answer.
What happens if one of your people’s passwords is compromised? Who has access to your most important systems and information? If you lost access to those systems tomorrow, how quickly could you recover? And who actually makes the decisions when something goes wrong?
I think one of the mistakes we make with cybersecurity is focusing entirely on stopping an attack. Obviously prevention matters, but no environment is perfect.
You also need to think about what happens next.
Could the business keep operating?
Could you communicate with your customers? Would you know what information might have been affected? Who would you call first?
Those aren’t really IT questions. They’re business questions.
One of the simplest things you can do is sit down with your team and work through a scenario.
Imagine arriving tomorrow morning and you can’t access email, your files or one of the main systems your business relies on.
What would you do?
You’ll probably find the gaps pretty quickly.
Cybersecurity can sound complicated because our industry has done a pretty good job of filling it with technical language.
But at an owner or leadership level, it can be much simpler.
What are we protecting? What could realistically go wrong? And if something does go wrong, are we ready?
