How To Stay Cyber Safe: New Tips For a New Landscape

The digital landscape is forever changing, and with it come new threats and potential problems for business owners. Online, the new threat to data and client/payment information is artificial intelligence, or AI. In 2025, there has been a surge in deepfake scams, with AI being able to imitate the voice and even visuals of CEOs to get access to data from staff.

Even if you have a small business, you’re not entirely safe, as data shows that businesses of all sizes are at risk, more so if they’re smaller, due to security problems. Luckily, you don’t have to shut your website down. There are some tips you can use to stay cyber safe, even among these growing scams.

It sounds paranoid but when you’re setting up a website that manages client data, trust no one. You should aim to set up a zero-trust policy for all staff who have access to sensitive data, which looks like a range of passkeys, encrypted sign-ins, and identity threat detection software on all workplace devices. It’s not necessarily about trust; it’s more about having constant authentication to keep files safe.

As before, the biggest threat to online data is AI. So, to help protect your online safety, it makes sense to use AI.

There are numerous AI-operated cybersecurity systems that can keep pace with AI that’s used for hacking and scams, which use behavioral analytics of customers and website code to spot issues or irregularities. These systems often act automatically but will send alerts to you and your staff so any potential problems can be reported before they escalate into hacks or data breaches.

Many businesses upload to the cloud and so, many attackers will get access to your data via this method. So, you need to implement Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), which will continually monitor misconfigurations and fix them when they occur. You should also make sure that any keys or passwords to the cloud are rotated regularly and monitor API activity to spot potential breaches.

In many cases, passwords aren’t enough to keep your business information safe, especially if they’re not regularly updated.

This is why in 2026, it’s advised that you upgrade to passkeys, biometrics, hardware tokens, and even phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, on top of rotated passwords and zero-trust policies. Email codes and SMS codes, or one-time passcodes, are, unfortunately, easy to hack and shouldn’t be trusted alone when it comes to online security.

Last but not least, it’s also worth investing in some software tools for online businesses that engage in automatic patching. These programs are often autonomous, will automatically find, download, and install appropriate security systems or applications, without you or any staff member needing to upgrade them manually.

Of course, to stay on the safe side, be sure to choose these systems from a reputable company and make sure to check any systems or programs that are downloaded.