As more and more websites collect more data about their users, the impact of a single security breach dramatically increases. A single incident can leak thousands of records, and the impact of the incident can drag on for years.
But what if you could prevent it? What if there were steps you could take to keep your data, your company data, and its employees secure? Fortunately, there is a parcel steps you can take.
Read on to discover 10 of the best data protection tips.
Consider encryption
This is the first step you need to take to protect your business data. Encryption gives you the power to scramble all the data you transfer, basically, so it’s useless without the required password.
This means that even if the data is stolen, it is much harder to compromise and use it.
Encryption is also easy to do yourself. A ton of programs can be used and tools available to encrypt and decrypt your business data for optimal business data protection.
Save all
When you back up everything, you protect your data in the event that a device is stolen. Ideally, your saved data will even be encrypted.
Keeping a consistent backup of your business data ensures that no information you need is lost when events occur.
Practice safe disposal
When you need to get rid of an old debit card or an old card, you’ve probably been asked to shred it. This additional precaution is in place In case something goes wrong. The same should be done for the old technology.
While you can’t put a laptop in a shredder, you can clean it up before you dispose of it or sell it. This will prevent old data from being stolen and then returned and used against your business.
You should also overwrite deleted files, delete old files from cloud storage, and take steps to make hard drives unreadable after removal.
Create a safety routine
Phishing emails and other sneak attacks are common among data thieves, but creating an inaccessible data wall can help keep thieves out. Services like DevSecOps make it easy to automate your security process, so data protection is always up to date.
You can also take a few other precautions, such as using a hardware firewall to prevent malicious attempts to steal data.
Keeping cameras and microphones blocked, disconnected, or turned off is another smart thing to do to protect your business. Just placing a sticker or post-it on webcams should be enough, but if they can both be disconnected and turn off when not in use, that’s ideal.
Keep everything up to date
Keeping things like plugins and apps up to date will ensure that your business uses the latest security and safety measures. When these go unchecked for too long, your software and other technologies start to fall behind and put your data at potential risk.
While updates to the operating system and antivirus software can take a long time, it’s a good idea to keep everything under control so that small weaknesses aren’t exposed.
Educate your employees
When it comes to security best practices, it’s worth educating your employees, regardless of their rank in the company.
Send information, organize seminars and trainings, organize regular tests and quizzes. This helps ensure that everyone in your business can properly maintain the integrity of your business data. Performing background checks on your employees can also help ensure that no one inside has access to things they shouldn’t.
In particular, you can make sure that every employee knows how to turn their computer on and off when not in use; making sure everyone knows how to identify a phishing email and which links are safe to click.
Other basic things include not writing passwords on sticky notes or notebooks and always signing out of accounts when not in use.
Protect your passwords
Selecting strong passwords is the number one way to adhere to security best practices for your business. Two-factor authentication is also a great thing for your business to adopt.
Make sure that you and your employees use phrases rather than words, as well as a combination of numbers and symbols when setting passwords. Make sure different passwords are used for each account, and never save passwords in browsers.
To keep track of passwords, adopt a secure program that can store them securely. Don’t go for Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, regular pen and paper, and expect your passwords to stay safe.
With secure password protection, you know exactly who has access to what. Make sure a protocol is in place to revoke access for people who resign or are fired from their positions within your company.
Build an IT infrastructure
Finally, building a strong IT infrastructure ensures that your business has a team of people to help you with any issues. Not only can they help with technical issues, but they will also be able to help with security issues as they arise.
Put these data protection tips into practice
When you put these data protection tips into practice, you empower your business and its data to be safe and protected from potential harm. You also equip your employees with skills they can use outside of work to protect their data on a daily basis.
Data protection is the number one way to keep you, your business and its employees safe in a digitally driven world. Taking precautions wherever you can is the best place to start.
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