Secure Your Business

In our line of work, we spend a lot of time securing our clients by setting up firewalls, locking down servers, installing antispam, antispyware and antivirus software and more; but do you ever think about the security of your business?

Think about this for a second. What would happen if your main business computer and its backups were stolen and how much damage would it do to your business? Your emails, documents, customer and account database are all gone. It would be devastating to just about any business. In this article, we’ll show you how to secure your own business.

Operating Out of Home
Most self employed computer technicians start their businesses out of a home office as it is a great way to save money while you build up your client base. However, it does has its risks.

For example, if you have a lot of stock in your home office at any given time it leaves you very vulnerable to theft and so you may not want to bring too much attention to the fact that you build computers in your house. A dead giveaway are all those hardware boxes for the latest and greatest parts visible in your trash. I usually flatten these boxes and put them out in a non-transparent trash bag.

Another danger of operating out of a home office are the potential of bad clients. It doesn’t matter how good and honest your operation is, you will eventually come across a client who will be very dissatisfied with you and so you may not want this person to know where you and your family sleep at night for obvious reasons. There are a lot of crazy people out there.
You also may want to consider getting a PO Box, they are very cheap (about $55 USD) and provide great peace of mind. They are also handy if you tend to move around alot.

I have personally come across some shady clients who not only look like a criminal, but bring in computers that I believe are stolen. In the past I have had a few of these in my house but now days I can usually determine whether the computer was stolen or not over the phone and turn them away immediately. You don’t want these kind of people entering your house, learning the layout and knowing the value of stock you carry.

However, you are a business and people need to be able to find you. It comes down to what sort of technician you are. When I was first starting out I worked onsite 95% of the time and only allowed drop off for people I had dealt with before. However, other technicians would happily put up a sign out front of their place so clients can find them easier. I guess it comes down to what sort of neighbourhood you live in.

Operating Out of a Store Front
Theft is obviously a big issue for store owners. During your operating hours you constantly have the threat of shoplifters so your valuable stock (like laptops) should be locked down and away from the door. I know of a few computer stores who had laptops positioned near the door and a shoplifter reached in, grabbed the laptop and left.

Ive also seen photos of a more daring robbery that occurred at one of my suppliers. The thief came into the store during normal business hours but no one was at the reception desk. He walked around the back of the service counter, unplugged one of the businesses computers on the desk (not sell-able stock, the actual businesses machines) and walked off with it. That store now keeps their computers under the front desk so they aren’t as easily unplugged. This event was recorded by many of their above average cameras but the thief didn’t seem to care.

For your stock, I recommend that you buy some cable locks for your computers and/or lock the laptops down with either a Kensington lock or put them in a clear, locked cabinet.

During your businesses closed times you are also vulnerable to a good old fashioned night time break in. To protect against this make sure you have good locks not only at your front door, but also on any doors that you have inside the store, a “call to base” security system and your valuable stock locked down in some way. You should also avoid using cheap laptop locks with thin cables to lock down laptops, bolt cutters can cut through these like a hot knife through butter.

A new trend in robbery is the “Ram Raid”. A Ram Raid is the process of stealing a car, driving it through the front of your shop and taking everything they can. You may want to consider putting up security bollards out the front of your store to prevent this. Security bollards not only protect your business from ram raids, but also stop drivers coming through the front of your store when they accidentally put their car in drive instead of reverse when backing out of their parking spot.

Another danger to a computer shop are Invoice Scams. Invoice scams are when scammers send you a fake invoice from a fake company that appears to be in your field or appears to be from a real company that you deal with. The invoice will be charging for something generic like “computer parts” or something else non descriptive. These invoice scams work because if you have a secretary/accountant who comes in once a week to do your bookwork, they generally don’t second guess the invoice and just pay.
I have a few clients who have been fooled by similar scams and now have systems in place where the boss has to approve all invoices sent to the business before anything can be done with them. You might want to set up a similar system.

Backups
Last but not least, always have a backup. There are some great freeware backup solutions out there like Cobian Backup. If you pair this up with an external hard drive, it makes a great backup solution.

Technicians working out of a home office should lock down their backup drives with a Kensington lock (most have a slot) and store owners should take the backup drive offsite every night to help protect from fire and theft. Every few weeks, do a test of the backed up files because no fun having a hard drive fail only to find out that your backups haven’t been working correctly.