Now that more funeral planning is happening online, cybersecurity is more important than ever. You may think, “I don’t have anything to hide.” But hackers can ruin your important files and steal sensitive information. 

For example, with families entering their personal information on your website, such as credit card numbers for funeral payments, they need a secure connection. 

Let’s go over some cybersecurity tips for your funeral home to keep your staff’s and client families’ information safe. 

Importance of Having an SSL Certificate for Your Funeral Home’s Website 

First off, a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate is a small data file that encrypts the data that’s exchanged between your web server and computer. Basically, encrypting data scrambles it in a way that hackers can’t decipher. 

Websites with an SSL certificate have HTTPS at the beginning of their URL. While non-secure websites begin with HTTP, so it’s easy for users to tell the difference. Browsers like Google Chrome make it even more obvious if your website isn’t secure by displaying an alert to users. 

All Frazer-powered funeral home websites have SSL certificates. This way, your staff knows your information is safe, and your client families have peace of mind. 

Email Safety Tips to Keep Your Funeral Home’s Devices Secure 

Keep an eye out for phishing. This is when hackers target you by email, phone call, or text message pretending to be from a legitimate institution. Below are four ways to tell if it’s a phishing email: 

1. Too good to be true. If the offer seems too good to be true, then it’s probably phishing. 
2. Sense of urgency. If they want you to act right away, it might be phishing. 
3. Misspellings. Multiple misspellings in the email content and hyperlinks are a bad sign. 
4. Strange email address. If the email address seems off, that’s another bad sign.

Create Strong Passwords for All of Your Funeral Home’s Accounts 

You may be wondering, what makes a password a strong one? Below are four key factors that make up a strong password: 

1. Impossible to guess. Don’t use common phrases, like significant dates and names. Instead, use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. 
2. Longer the better. Short passwords are easier to hack. 
3. Kept secret. Only share passwords when absolutely necessary. 
4. One password per account. Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts. 

Best Practices for Keeping Your Funeral Home’s WiFi Secure 

You also should create a secure password for your funeral home’s WiFi. Make sure your WiFi network uses the WPA security standard rather than an outdated WEP one. Changing the SSID (your network name) also makes it harder for hackers to break into your network since that makes it harder for them to determine the make and model of your router. It’s also a good idea to make a separate guest network that has a password for your families and guests. 

To learn more cybersecurity tips, such as for backing up your data and offline risks, download our free eBook!