Is your business protected from a data breach? The largest data theft in history:

1.2 billion internet user names and passwords compromised
420,000 websites impacted
Well-known national brands and small companies affected.
Here are ten things you can do to protect your business.

1. Secure sensitive customer, employee or patient data.

Store paper files and removable storage devices (such as thumb drives and CDs) containing sensitive information in a locked drawer, cabinet, safe or other secure container when not in use.
Restrict access to sensitive data to those who have a need to know. Give employees access to only the information they need to do their jobs - whether it's online or in paper form.

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Tai Lopez was born and raised on the wrong side of the tracks but he made choices early on in his adult life to move to the other side.

Today he lives in a massive Beverly Hills mansion, shares his tips for creating wealth and fulfillment on his super popular social media channels and rubs shoulders with the most successful people in the world.

So how did this all happen?

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Business Insiders premium research service, expects that there will be more than 24 billion connected devices on Earth by 2020 — approximately four devices for every human being on the planet.

And as the IoT expands, it will have a particularly profound effect on businesses, especially small businesses. Several IoT business opportunities will be created in the coming years as we head into an increasingly connected world.

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With the ongoing move of smart phones towards near-ubiquity, much of society has come to take these do-all devices for granted. In overcoming the novelty of smart phones, many of us have lost our one-time sense of awe at this technology, and have ceased marveling at the effect it has had on the world around us. However, it is undeniable that smart phones have exerted a huge and multi-faceted impact on society, and continue to do so to this day.

The Advent of Access: How Smart Phones Have Changed the World

Great communication skills are a powerful tool to have in your arsenal. Here are eight proven strategies that will improve yours today.

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Do you own a small business? If so, you are a favorite target of the Internet bad guys. More and more, they are moving away from well-prepared big businesses and stealing from small businesses, who are often unable to cope with even the most basic cyberattacks. Answer the following questions and then think carefully about what the answers mean for you.

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Running a business is complicated, which means there are some factors or tasks that tend to get overlooked. From basic concepts to more involved processes, members of our small business community have plenty of tips for dealing with those sometimes overlooked business tasks. See the full list of tips below.

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Perhaps it is time to embrace some new first principles.

Making a first impression is not easy. People are just so sensitive these days. Sensitive about themselves, that is.

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Yahoo has confirmed that it was the target of what may be the largest cyberattack of all time. The breach took place back in 2014 and compromised the data of an unprecedented 500 million users.   - See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9435-yahoo-cyberattack.html#sthash.y9TRc8EM.dpuf

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It is common knowledge that targeting customers will result in a higher sales conversion than non-targeted, random traffic that just happens upon your website. In order to effectively target your customers, you need to know who and where they are. Customers come in all shapes and sizes, so how do you discern which customers are the best to target?

The following are tips to identify your best customers...

Tips to Identify Your Customers

You do not have to be an adult to start your own business. In fact, there are many different business opportunities that teens can use to get their entrepreneurial journeys started. Here are 50 business opportunities for teens.

50 Business Ideas for Teens

Look the part You may be trembling inside, but you want to appear strong and in control. How can you communicate confidence that you may or may not be feeling? Try following these simple tips.

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Despite the potential for physical, emotional, and mental stress, you can learn to lead a sustainable and healthy lifestyle as an entrepreneur.

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For small and local businesses, it can be hard to stand out against larger nationwide brands. However, content marketing can help your small business attract attention, and for relevant niches in your industry, too.

Content marketing is a marketing approach that involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to your prospective audience in the hopes of driving a consumer action, and it has numerous benefits for small businesses. It can give you the opportunity to not only expand your company, but also to build your reputation and establish a place as a trusted leader in the industry.

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When you run a business, it’s important to always keep an eye on the future if you want your business to grow and improve. Members of our small business community understand what it takes to keep businesses moving forward. Here are some of their top tips.

Make Sure Your Small Business is Prepared for the Holidays

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Millennial business owners depend on social media for brand promotion more than any other medium.

Shocked, right? OK, probably not. But just how much Millennial business owners are using this relatively new media — or how much they don’t use traditional media — may come as a surprise.

New data (PDF) from Magisto shows that 68 percent of Millennial small business owners and entrepreneurs depend on social media channels for developing awareness of their own brands.

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Starting a small business in the United States has never been easier and, in fact, small businesses make up the backbone of the American economy. 9 out of every 10 employees works for one of the 28 million small businesses across the country. Each month, a half million new businesses enter the market, of which about 70% will last at least two years and one-third will last longer than 15 years.

But what does it mean to be a small business?

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With this tumultuous year behind us, I am fixing my mind on what's to come in 2017. Change is the only constant in life, and with a new administration about to take over--I am truly optimistic about next year since entrepreneurs seem to be looking forward to the potential changes that this new year might bring.

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If you are like most Americans, you’re probably making up a list of new year’s resolutions: lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking, be nicer to your in-laws. While those resolutions may be long forgotten by February, I have got a list of resolutions you will want to keep to help you succeed in your small business in 2017.

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U.S. small businesses are wrapping up 2016 with stronger sales and improved profitability.

Businesses with less than $10 million in annual revenues have experienced, on average, 7.3 percent annual sales growth during 2016, according to a financial statement analysis by Sageworks, a financial information company. That represents the fifth consecutive year that sales have grown more than 7 percent.

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Christmas has come and gone, but anybody struggling to keep a small business afloat or pondering an entrepreneurial venture might be digging under the desiccated blue spruce (take it out, already) for a missed present or two. The good news is that, as tough as politicians make it to launch your own firm, they've recently gifted us with a bit of relief from their depredations—and more may be on the way.

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To make lives easier, Moore offers the following legal tips to help small and medium-sized business owners.

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How Can Small Business Owners Build their Online Presence Using Pinterest?

Pinterest is not just an image sharing site. Small businesses can take advantage of the platform to market their goods and services to over 100 million online visitors. Here is how.

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As a small business, you are uniquely positioned to be able to compete for above average margins, and this should be your focus.

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A New Year has arrived, along with some big security challenges.

In 2017 the expected proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices across all types of environments will make it tough to ignore the security ramifications. The continued popularity of the cloud will continue to attract the attention of cyberattackers and ransomware authors will keep the IT security industry on its toes.

Here are some of the small business security trends to follow going into a brand-new year.

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Asking for that promotion or finally starting your own business is easier with an inspiring read in your back pocket. Plan to pick up one of these books in 2017 to boost your creativity, or learn leadership lessons from the best.

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Are you starting a business for the first time? It can be challenging to step out of your comfort zone and go head to head with competitors, manage customer orders and deliver a desirable product. Putting in the right amount of market research goes without saying. But how do you increase your chances of success when starting a business? Check out these 6 ways here.

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Small business owners might assume that their small size makes them immune to cyber threats. Cyber criminals, in other words, only go after the big, flashy opportunities, like the major cyber attack on Target in 2013, which compromised roughly 40 million credit and debit card accounts.

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These Deductions Can Really Help Your Bottom Line
When you deliver your files, receipts and spreadsheets this year, make sure to schedule some time with your accountant to discuss tax deductions that could save your business vitally important revenue. You may be aware of many of them already, but here’s a refresher course just in case.

For example, you probably know that while your salary is a non-deductible draw in many cases, you can deduct the salaries and wages you pay your employees. And speaking of wages, you can also deduct the fees you pay to professional service providers such as accountants, lawyers and perhaps even your tax preparer. Yay!

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Being a business owner is a dream of many; but a reality of only a few. Especially when it comes to actually making it in the small business space. It requires persistence, preparation and dedication.

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Our never-ending quest towards self-improvement is a long journey of small steps. Small habits we repeat day after day, week after week, year after year. Small habits that have turned us into who we are today can also determine who we will become in the future. Below are 7 Power Habits of some of the greatest human beings to ever live.

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Everyone told us that the name Worstofall Design would not work. You can not use negativity in your branding, they said.

We decided to go with our gut and ignore the rules.

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More and more hiring managers no longer view longevity on a résumé as a positive attribute. Some believe it indicates the employee lacks diverse work experience; others that the employee is complacent, or is afraid of change. This could very well be the case, but to me (and I may be coming from an old school of thought), stability on a résumé is something that hiring managers should still value. It can demonstrate loyalty, dependability, expertise and commitment.

More specifically, here is how I evaluate longevity in a potential employee, in an attempt to see if it should be embraced, rather than dismissed.

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Steven Mnuchin, Trumps candidate to run the Treasury Department, has stated that comprehensive tax reform will be an immediate priority of Trumps administration, and that his focus as Treasury Secretary will be stimulating economic growth and creating jobs through tax reform.

But how will this affect small businesses and their owners?

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As 2017 unfolds, small businesses should take a look at what did not work in 2016 and find ways to improve in the upcoming year. While you work to control spending and shed some of the holiday pounds, don’t forget about making social media resolutions for your business.

Social media in 2017 will really be a defining factor in successful marketing strategies and strong businesses. In 2016, social media boomed for businesses. It was part of marketing strategies in previous years, but new advertising updates for social platforms and business-friendly changes made it easier than ever for organizations to make connections and offer valuable customer service.

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Atop many business award programs sits privately-held and family-run Wegmans grocery stores, from No. 4 on FORBES list of Americas Best Employers. Based in Rochester, NY, the supermarket has an ardent fan base – including Alec Baldwins mother, who refused to move to California and give up her access to the grocery store – and legions of die-hard shoppers.

And who can blame them? Clean stores, huge inventories, reasonable prices and a seeming dedication to making life easier for its customers, Wegmans offers many lessons small businesses can learn from and apply.

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Optimism is powerful -- but so is preparation. In a live chat, Todd Herman explained that too much positivity can actually derail your goals. To that end, he shared three essential questions everyone should ask themselves to stay truly grounded.

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More targeted marketing was one of the biggest contributions enterprises welcomed when big data first hit. Big data allowed brands to create elaborate, yet personalized campaigns that evolved to become increasingly effective as salesmen and marketers learned how to actually use all of the data they now had access to. But now, big data has become so broad and complex it has outgrown its ability to provide tangible results without the translation of an IT department.

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Elon uses the Richard Feynman technique from what I have read about his approach, mixed with first principles.

... which is, basically, in simple terms: do not try to remember, but try to understand; when you understand, you will remember automatically.

Sounds simple? But yet, so many people do not do it like that. They try to cram loads of info and facts into their brains, especially students, with the result of forgetting a lot of it.

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Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?

1 – A new form of ransomware centers on a fake font update.

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Getting there starts with breaking down profit into its components and using six tools to move those pieces in the right direction.

Profit is revenue minus costs. But to boost profit, it helps to break it down further into gross profit -- price times quantity minus variable costs (e.g., costs that increase with each unit of product you sell) -- minus fixed costs (e.g., salaries, benefits, rent, and utilities).

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Tech startups can help optimize retailers' in-store operations and customer experiences, enabling them to keep up with competition from e-commerce companies. This category includes hardware and software such as sensors that track foot traffic, interactive tablets that boost customer engagement, and mobile point-of-sale applications.

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In a technology climate riddled with ransomware and other threats, there’s no room for complacency.

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Sears built its business dominating catalog sales, fulfilling the pre-smartphone on-demand demands of its clientele. This revolution in direct-to-consumer sales created loyal customers, a nationwide network of stores and decades of profit. Times became more challenging for Sears following the rise in popularity of Walmart, which offered similar goods for cheaper prices, and Amazon, which led the charge on ecommerce, and has spent billions of dollars on capitalizing on fast delivery.

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It is generally assumed that millennials are seeking jobs in coastal cities — New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles.

But new data from Indeed.com shows that millennials looking to work for small businesses are actually narrowing their searches toward inland cities.

Cities Where Millennials Want to Work for Small Businesses
In fact, when identifying metro areas where millennials are most often looking for work at small businesses. Oklahoma City topped the job board’s list, not L.A. or New York.

This is the latest crop of data looking at generational trends among job seekers.

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On Tuesday, independent tech publisher No Starch Press found out that Amazon was selling counterfeit copies of Python for Kids, one of its popular programming books. A concerned customer alerted Bill Pollock, the founder and publisher of No Starch. He immediately knew what he was up against, because Pollock has dealt with this problem before.

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1. Wasting five minutes.
When you have five minutes of down time, how do you spend that time? Most people use it as an excuse to rest or laze.

By lazing for five five-minute breaks each day, we waste 25 minutes daily. That's 9,125 minutes per year (25 X 365). Sadly, my guess is we're wasting far more time than that.

34 Things You Need to Give Up to Be Successful

Whenever we create digital content, we reference other web pages, either for further reading or to give a credit. In most cases, we link out in order to create better content and provide the reader with more information on the subject.

But did you know that links can provide further value for your business? If you approach it strategically, linking out can actually bring leads and business contacts.

How to Link From Your Content to Build Leads and Connections

However, a business exit strategy not only means having a plan for the unexpected - including financial hardship, injury, disability and even death - it also means having a plan for the succession or transfer of ownership of your business when it comes time to hang up your hat and retire.

How to plan an exit strategy for your small business

Here is a fact: fake news is everywhere.  There is not a reputable news source out there distributing information with an objective, unbiased voice. It just does not exist anymore.

Where are the Cronkites, the Huntleys, the Brinkleys? In this frayed political climate, fake news seems to be at the very top of every discussion; it’s almost inescapable

Fake News Hurts Small Business