Tulsa Tech Works To Protect Small Businesses From Cyber Attacks

As cyber attacks become more common, Tulsa Tech is working to help small businesses keep their information safe from potential data breaches.

Data breaches can happen to anyone, from small businesses to organizations as big as EMSA.

Related Story: EMSA Notifies Patients Of Recent Network Hack

While this cyber security program has been offered for a few years now, the people teaching the course said it's never too late to learn about the basics of cyber security.

Business owners are encouraged to take inventory of the data they have on customers and put good passwords and firewalls in place.

While bigger businesses may have more resources to stop or deal with cyber attacks, small business owners might make the decision to close if they experience a cyber-attack.

"The other downside for small businesses is if they get hit, a lot of times they cannot recover. So a cyber security hit on a large business, they might be able to recover from that in a few months in a year; a lot of small businesses can’t," Jonathan Kimmitt, the Tulsa Tech adjunct professor teaching the program said.

Kimmitt said he wants the business owners or people who take the program come out of it thinking a little bit differently about what they can do to protect their information and apply it to their own businesses.

"When they come out of the class, my hope is that they are completely thinking differently about cyber security, about IT security. And they can immediately go back to the organization and put some of these basic things in place to help protect themselves from these attacks," Kimmitt said.

The class will take place on April 23 and 24 and will cost $59. You can learn more about the program at Tulsa Tech's website.