Quick answer
Small businesses are not usually targeted by anyone sophisticated. They are caught by automated, opportunistic attacks and by everyday mistakes. That is good news, because the defences against ordinary problems are ordinary and cheap.
Separate accounts, always
One shared login that everyone in the shop knows means no accountability and no way to remove access when someone leaves. Give each person their own account. It costs nothing and it is the single change that improves the most situations at once.
Two-factor on the accounts that matter
Email first, then banking, then anything holding customer records. Email is first because it is the reset route for everything else: whoever controls the email controls the rest.
Passwords: length beats complexity theatre
- Three or four unrelated words are stronger and easier to remember than a short string of substituted symbols
- Never reuse the password from your email anywhere else
- A password manager is worth the small cost; a notebook in a locked drawer is genuinely better than reuse
Router and camera defaults
Default admin passwords on routers, recorders and IP cameras are published lists. Change them on the day of installation. This is the most common way that a small business device ends up reachable from the internet by someone who was simply scanning.
The scam that actually arrives
It is rarely a technical attack. It is an email or a message asking someone in your office to change a payment account, buy vouchers, or share a code, apparently from you. Agree one rule with your staff: any payment change is confirmed by a phone call to a number you already had. That single habit blocks most of it.
Backups are also a security measure. Ransomware is only a catastrophe if the restore does not work.
A realistic starting list
- Individual accounts for each person
- Two-factor on email
- Automatic updates switched on
- Default passwords changed on every network device
- One tested, off-site backup
That list is not exhaustive, and it is far more than most businesses of this size have in place.
Tell us what you have already tried. That helps our technician arrive prepared.