Cybersecurity Basics Every Small Business Should Have in Place

You don't need an enterprise budget to be reasonably secure. Most incidents we clean up would have been prevented by five basic controls.

First, backups. Keep at least one copy off-site or in the cloud, and test a restore quarterly — an untested backup is just a hope.

Second, multi-factor authentication on email and any financial system. Stolen passwords are the single most common entry point.

Third, keep systems patched. Fourth, run reputable endpoint protection on every machine. Fifth, train your staff to recognise phishing — the human layer catches what software misses.