Keep your company’s data safe with these 5 easy tips.
Keeping data safe is a constant requirement for your business to verify that your data is secure. Try implementing these different ways to keep your data safe, no matter what size your business is.
Keeping data safe is very important for companies to achieve, especially online where cybercriminals can access that data much more easily. Keeping data safe is so important because even if your company can stop a cyber-attack, the data breach will continue to impact your business long after it has occurred. All business owners need to be concerned with keeping their data safe, no matter what size their business is. Data breaches do not only affect large companies; small and medium-size businesses often are the most attractive targets for cybercriminals. There are many ways to protect data in your company from cybercriminals. If you want to know how to keep data safe and secure for your company, follow these different types of data security measures to protect your company’s data.
Ways to Keep Data Safe and Secure
#1 Be aware of insider threats
Most companies only think about outside hackers when they think about protecting their data. It is also important, though, to remember that hackers can be within your own company. When setting up security protocols to protect your company’s data, make sure you think about the possible inside threats, not just the outside ones. An angry employee could be looking to ‘get back’ at your company or even a careless employee who doesn’t follow security protocols properly could put your company’s data at risk. Make sure that your business has security measures to protect its data against people on your own servers and keep a watchful eye on employee accounts and mobile devices.
#2 Change passwords often
Many experts agree that passwords should be changed every 60-90 days and it is never wise to use the same password for every service. To help your company stay protected against data breaches, your business should implement a strong password policy and even use a password management tool that will help your company keep the passwords employees use strong. It is never wise to use a password more than once and never make your password common knowledge like your child or pet’s name. Also, keep in mind that the strongest passwords contain a capital letter, a number, are more than eight characters long and contain some type of symbol. A strong password is how to keep information secure on a computer at your company.
#3 Investigate
Before you decide to hire a new service to incorporate into your business workflow, make sure you do your homework and verify their credentials. An excellent way to guarantee that any new service you incorporate into your company is legitimate is to only use services recommended by security experts and professional associations. When it comes to implementing new services into your company, do not just choose the best bargain to save money. Make sure you use a service that will meet all your security needs or you could be causing a lot of trouble for your company.
Also, if your IT security team notices any abnormalities or unusual usage on your company’s network, the best thing to do is to investigate. While this may just be a glitch, it is also possible that it is a security breach and if you ignore it, the situation could become 100X worse.
#4 Use a backup service
Many companies are beginning to use the cloud to back up their data because they can store massive amounts of their data here and the backups are done in real-time. Backing up your company’s data in the cloud is very beneficial, especially if you have a cybercriminal breach your security, steal your data and erase that data once they’re done. If you do not have a back up of this data, you will lose years of valuable work that will cost your company millions of dollars. Using the cloud is the best way to store sensitive data.
#5 Retain employees
Replacing an employee doesn’t just cost you a lot of money and time to search for and hire a new candidate, it also costs a lot of money and time to have to reset security protocols and to remove their passwords and authority to access sensitive data. If your company has a high turnover rate, it is at a much higher risk of experiencing an attack. This attack could come from the former employee or just a cybercriminal who was waiting around for an abandoned password.
When it comes to keeping the data of your company secure, there are never too many measures you can take to ensure this. If you feel that your company is vulnerable to cyber-attacks, try implementing all these safety measures to protect your secure data.
