As more of us move to the cloud and become increasingly dependent on technology for our everyday lives, the threat of cyber attack has brought us to an entirely new era of security.
Cloud technology has greatly increased our efficiency and productivity. We have the internet at our fingertips, apps on our phones, we can bank without a card and much more. With all this freedom, has come a greater dependency on cyber security. This increased vulnerability has brought us into the era of cyber security and normalised the threat of attack. CERT Australia have listed the biggest cyber security challenges to face Australian businesses in 2018 and beyond. They foresee the biggest challenge to face small business in the near future will be cyber crime.
What can you do to protect your business?
There are some basic steps you can take to protect your business from cyber attack. We have mentioned many of these in our article Is Your Business Cyber Safe? In addition to these strategies, almost all the accounting cloud solutions providers have enabled Two Step Authentication (2SA) What is 2SA? It sounds complicated but really, we are already using this regularly.
When you register online and the software sends you an email with an authentication link you must click, you are using 2SA. When a software provider or bank sends you a text message with a code you need to input, you are using 2SA. Xero have just begun enforcing 2SA on all their users. In order to use Xero you must download Google Authenticator app and when you log in to Xero, type the code that comes up in the app first. Tip: When you type the code into the Xero login screen, there is a small box underneath to ‘remember this code for 30 days’.
If you click on this, you will only need to re-enter the code every 30 days or if you use a different computer or device. Although the enforcement of Two Step Authentication is a bother in the beginning, the benefits are worth the effort. If you use cloud accounting, you WILL need to use 2SA to protect your data. It works and will greatly reduce the number of cyber attacks. 2SA is not the complete answer but if you are informed and treat cyber attack as a legitimate business threat, your business will be safer, which will protect your biggest asset and keep you competitive
