The Top 4 Biggest Risks For Businesses

Running a business has always come with risks but as technology evolves, those risks change. Understanding more about the biggest risks for businesses to help you to face them. Here are some you should remain aware of.

Failing to comply with legislation

Organizations are now able to gather more data than ever. When you hold a lot of information about your customers, you have a duty to keep it safe. Because of this, legislation that’s designed to protect customer’s changes. When you fail to stay up-to-date with the latest legislation, you increase your risk of failing to comply with it.

It’s worth understanding that you don’t just need to comply with data protection laws in your state or country. If your business has clients and customers abroad, you need to comply with their home nation’s legislation too. A great example of this is the GDPR rules in Europe, which have affected websites throughout the world. As a result of GDPR, any site that attracts visitors from Europe must make its cookie gathering policy clear.

Losing access to client data

Once upon a time, the fastest way to lose access to client data was to experience a hardware failure. Today, ransomware poses a bigger threat. In 2019, the total damage cost as a result of ransomware is set to hit $11.5-billion. If you’re not familiar with what ransomware is, it’s helpful to have a quick overview. Those who launch ransomware attacks hold your business’s computers and the data they store ransom until you pay a certain amount of money. If you fail to meet their payment demands, you may lose the data forever.

Because ransomware is a significant threat, it’s worth backing your data up in the cloud, or, at least the data that’s most important to your business. As a result, you can mitigate any associated disasters and costs from attacks.

Not hitting cost management targets

Just under 50% of companies manage to meet their cost management targets when it comes to technology. Although it’s difficult to identify the exact reasons for this, one problem could be overspending on the tech that isn’t required. With emerging technologies such as AI becoming increasingly popular, the temptation to overspend is real.

One way to reduce the risk of overspending is to use a consultancy firm to help you identify the technologies you genuinely need. Additionally, you should create a tech expansion plan that you review each year to ensure it aligns with your business’s changes. To further reduce the costs of servers, consider hosting more of your business’s information in a virtual domain. Tools such as the cloud can reduce your server costs so you can spend money elsewhere.

Rising DDoS attacks

Thanks to the growth of the Internet of Things, launching DDoS attacks is easier than ever. Unfortunately, if your business becomes a target, you could experience website downtime. For every moment your website is down, you’re missing out on new customers and you could alienate existing ones.

Guarding your business against DDoS attacks is crucial if you’re going to protect its reputation. With the right approach, you can help your site’s servers differentiate between genuine and false traffic.

As business risks continue to emerge, your approach to offsetting them needs to adapt. From keeping DDoS attacks at bay to reducing your chances of losing data, there’s a lot to consider. Fortunately, with the right IT management team, you can reduce risks and keep your venture safe.