Assess Your Current Cybersecurity Risks and Make a Plan

Hackers and Cybersecurity

In one of our earlier emails, we shared an alert about SBA loan scams and tips for employees working remotely . We were grateful to connect with Kevin Peterson, CEO of the Peterson Technology Group, LLC . He noted that many companies moved online quickly in the wake of the Safer At Home order, and that quick transition left some businesses potentially vulnerable.

In the section that follows, we share some of his tips and considerations for keeping your company safe from cybersecurity attacks. We also provide a few resources below that can help you make a longer-term cybersecurity plan, especially given the extension of Safer at Home to May 26.

Assess Current Risks

Start with a conversation of what’s most important in terms of business continuity. Taking some time to assess what elements of your business are essential components can help you focus your efforts.
Don’t try to solve everything for everyone on every day or immediately.
Know what you can be flexible on.
Choose remote access and work strategies based on need, security, ease of implementation, and priorities. One of the biggest areas to consider is your business’ data integrity.
Moving your data to a cloud-based service and having offsite backups (OneDrive, Sharepoint, Box, etc.) can help protect your information and make it recoverable if something happens.
This is also true for your Office 365 or Gmail account; both services do not back up email automatically.
If your business does not currently utilize a backup service, it may be helpful to note that some of these are being offered for free for a short period of time.
VPN vs Secure Remote Access
For overall security, consider:
How secure are the devices at home?
If corporate owned, can they be used for anything else?
If employee owned, how do you know they’re healthy and secure?
How will you manage and support your work-from-home environment and staff?

Looking Forward

If you’re looking to more extensively assess your business’ potential vulnerabilities, there are a number of places you can visit to begin the process. Here are a few:

The Small Business Big Threat program, hosted by the Wisconsin SBDC, provides you with a chance to learn more – in a 60-minute learning course and corresponding assessment – about where your business might be vulnerable
The Federal Communications Commission has developed a resource to help you create a custom planning guide.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Resilience Review helps you evaluate your own operational resilience and cybersecurity practices.

SBA Product Updates

As you have likely heard, the SBA application portal is currently closed for the Economic Injury Disaster Loans and Advances (EIDL) and for the Paycheck P rotection Program due to lack of appropriations funding. The SBA has processed more than 14 years’ worth of loans in less than 14 days.

Applicants who have already submitted their applications for EIDL will continue to be processed on a first-come, first-served basis. Currently, the SBA and Treasury are urging Congress to appropriate additional funds for the Paycheck Protection Program.

Additional notes from the SBA:

For PPP applications, your bank should know if your application has been approved. This process has had a relatively quick turnaround time.
For those who entered their EIDL applications before the portal transitioned to the streamlined application, you did not "lose your place" - those applications were combined with the others that came in through the new system.
SBA will never ask you to email documents. If additional documents are needed, those will go through the dropbox or portal.

Salesforce Care Small Business Grants

The Salesforce Care Small Business Grants program will soon be offering $10,000 grants to U.S. small businesses to provide capital to help them weather this crisis. Applications will open in mid-April.

Stay Updated Here

Save Small Business Fund

Funded by corporate and philanthropic partners, the Save Small Business Fund is a collective effort to provide $5,000 grants to as many small employers as we can. We hope these supplemental funds will help you get through the next days and weeks.

Qualifications :

Employ between 3 and 20 people
Be located in an economically vulnerable community (website includes a zip code search function)
Have been harmed financially by the COVID-19 pandemic

Applications open Monday, April 20

Enter your Email Address on the Website for a Reminder

The Wisconsin SBDC Network is a proud part of the Institute for Business & Entrepreneurship in the University of Wisconsin System . It is funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration.