Showing Your Customers Your Business Is Committed to Cyber Security

Business Insights
10/08/2022

As a business owner, it will be up to you to ensure your business is committed to cyber security. The last few years have been a challenge to some companies as they adjust to change, but it doesn't have to be complicated. Read this guide to learn more.


Importance Of Protecting Customer Data

You may or may not be aware of the recent cyber security laws brought into the UK in recent years. More recently, we had the GDPR regulations in 2018 change how businesses can use customers' data.


As a business owner, you likely remember the drastic changes businesses had to make to meet these regulations, which led to permission requests for data and mass deletions. Not only is cyber security important for your business, but they have also become a legal requirement in some case.


Cover the cyber security basics

There are some quick, simple cost-effective ways to start to protect important information. Aim to get the bare minimum basics right.


  • Patch your systems updating them as new updates are released

  • Install and run antivirus software making sure that is running and it is up to date

  • Make sure that you have regular, secure backup of all of your important information.


Go Deeper - Set Security Standards

To gain the confidence of your customers go deeper and look at applicable standards to your business. It is more common these days that customers and clients will ask for security certifications before doing business with you. It could be as simple as Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus or more common ISO 27001. ISO 27001 is the international standard for information security and seen as a best practice. This standard will show that your business is aware of the concerns in the cyber world and that you have put steps in place to protect the business from future concerns.


A security standard helps reassure your customers that you are indeed looking after their data and have a clear-cut policy in place. It can be challenging to know where to start with implementing ISO 27001, which is why there are experts out there who can break down the steps and even provide templates for you to use.


You should contact organisations such as High Table, who can provide you with the complete guide to ISO 27001. They can help you meet the standard requirements through audits and completed documentation. Experts like this specialise in all things ISO 27001, meaning you can learn more about writing ISO 27001 Information Security Management System documents and more about cyber security in general. It's worth always looking at your security standard and ensuring that you continuously monitor these processes and upgrade, when possible, preferably as early as you can.


Using ISO 27001 as a standard, you should create yourself a cyber security strategy. This strategy should encompass a range of issues, either one you've experienced before or ones that are prevalent within your industry. This strategy should help you record and document a range of issues in the cyber world. A large part of this will relate to the data privacy, which is one of the main reasons recent GDPR regulations were brought in.


Communicate Regularly

On the subject of working with your employees to boost your cyber security policies, it will also be a good idea for you to communicate with them about any incoming changes. More than that, you should communicate with your customer base too, as if they don't hear from you, they may not trust you.


Open communication should be commonplace within your business. This will be especially true if your customers have any issues with the way, you have operated your cyber security before. Regaining this reputation should be a priority for your business, but you will need to prove that you are worthy of changing.


It may not even be your reputation directly that was damaged. It could have been that a competitor in the industry was hacked. If they lost data, it could prove to customers within the industry that it's not a safe place to be. It will be up to you to write ISO 27001 documents and the like, to prove you care about data privacy and cyber security.


Author: Stuart Barker | Director at High Table the ISO 27001 Company: https://hightable.io