What Cyber-Theft Means for Entrepreneurs

What does the future hold for entrepreneurs and their businesses and foreign cyber-attacks? A new report showing evidence of “an unrelenting cyber espionage campaign linked to the Chinese government” that has been going on for years has the Obama administration considering possible fines against the Asian superpower and others.

Cybersecurity firm Mandiant concludes that the only way that these attacks could be going on is “with the full knowledge and support of the Beijing government”. The problem for entrepreneurs and U.S. businesses is that cyber bullies are hacking our companies and taking data.

The issue is not just a potential disruption for businesses by nuisance hackers but the grander effect on consumers, cash flow, and the viability of a number of new business models, especially in the tech world.

With a major push toward virtual currency and more online payments, the risk is rocketing. It doesn’t matter if it is your fault or not, customers expect you to keep them safe. The more businesses that fail to maintain security, the more it will affect the broader consumer base.

Right now you are on your own to secure sites and customer info, and if you don’t have a real plan for it, you are a sitting duck for cyber attacks.

Keep pushing to virtualize, but don’t make it your only payment method or way of staying up and running and taking orders, or you could run into repeat stalls in operations and miss out on quite a few customers as more get squeamish about sending money to phantom firms over the web. There’s nothing quite like the good old phone to ensure business continuity, no matter what happens to you website and file storage.