Share Your Passion, Not Your Password

From Target to Home Depot, data breaches at large companies have been making national headlines. Millions of consumers have had their data compromised at very high costs. The price of clean-up from the Target breach alone is expected to hit $1 billion (Source 1).

Many small and medium business owners don’t even recognize that they are at risk of a data breach; they assume their small size is less attractive to potential attackers and therefore a deterrent.  On the contrary, small businesses like yours are targeted and hit every day.

At a minimum, hiring a financial firm to investigate a breach at your studio, gym, salon or office could cost you $10,000. This doesn’t include the cost of fines, legal fees, and compensation (Source 2). Further, a data breach tarnishes the trust you’ve built with your customers.

At Mindbody, we love enabling our users to share their passion with employees, coworkers, clients and more. Along with that, keeping your information safe is a top priority for us. Although our software is secure, every business is susceptible to an attack by an ill-willed intruder.

The easiest way for someone to hack your system is to get ahold of your password.

Hackers aren’t always strangers in ski masks breaking into your system in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s the person who finds the Post-It that you’ve jotted your password on, the scorned former (or current) employee that you shared your login credentials with, or the app vendor who (unbeknownst to you) uses your password to gain access to all of your customers’ data.

It’s important to understand that your username and password act as your signature.  All transactions are logged. As the business owner, you’re able to see who did what, and when they did it. If you find yourself in a situation where your data may have been compromised, this log is critical in determining the actuality and extent of the breach. 

By protecting your personal password and giving everyone in your organization a unique login, the transaction log can be completely trusted.  If usernames and passwords are shared, the transaction log becomes invalid and you will be unable to identify and prosecute the actions of a dishonest employee.

While the threat of a security breach is intimidating, fortifying your business’s security is simple:

• Keep usernames and passwords separate
• Make a separate login for every employee to safeguard your data security.
• Never share your login information with anyone, including:
  • Mindbody employees
  • Third-party vendors or services
  • Your employees and coworkers
  • Other businesses/Mindbody software users
• Contact the Mindbody security team if you have any concerns