Any company can suffer a data breach, however, smaller businesses have become a hacker’s favorite target. In fact, Bank of America Merchant Services’ third-annual Small Business Payments Spotlight found that 21% of small to medium-sized businesses (SMB’s) reported a data breach within the last 24 months. Breaches cost 41% of small businesses more than $50,000 to recover. On top of that, 30% of consumers said they wouldn’t work with a small business that suffered from a data breach, up 20% from two years ago.
SMB’s Best Practices
To keep your business from becoming a statistic, follow these best practices:
- Update your software; this will defend your business against new cyber-attacks.
- Swipe all of your payment transactions; this will keep fraud away.
- Train your employees to recognize phishing scams.
- Secure WiFi networks – ensure that a password is required and that your network is hidden.
Devaluing the Data is Key for SMB’s
At Bluefin, we advocate for a holistic payment security approach, consisting of EMV, PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) and tokenization to “devalue” an SMB’s payment data. There are two security paths that companies can take in the fight against data breaches: Defend the Data or Devalue the Data. With the Defend the Data approach, SMB’s build stronger, higher, and more expensive walls of security around their systems and data.
With the Devalue the Data approach, businesses employ security technology to devalue the cardholder data before it reaches their point-of-sale (POS) systems, rendering the data useless to hackers if it is exposed. This is where P2PE is such a crucial security technology, since it immediately encrypts card data within a PCI P2PE device so that it never traverses the system or network as clear text.
Sign Up with Bluefin and Get a $50 Amazon Gift Card
Bluefin and RepairQ would like to help your business follow the best practices for small businesses. RepairQ clients that are approved for a merchant account and begin processing with Bluefin will receive a $50 Amazon Gift Card! Click here to learn more.