In the modern workplace, information technology plays an important role in the communication between a business and its clients. This communication often involves the exchange or storage of business data.
Though it is an essential used by most, business data is often at risk of several threats, such as getting lost, damaged, or stolen by hackers in cyberspace. It may also get corrupted as a result of cyberattacks from malware, such as viruses. Additionally, if your data is leaked to cybercriminals, there would then be a lack of trust, and your loyal customers may leave, which would lead to a loss of business revenue.
To prevent this, you may want to take certain precautions, such as hiring a security agency to create customized data security solutions that will suit your culture in business.
And to help you learn more about your options, here are six tips we’d recommend to help you protect your business data:
1. Have Dedicated Servers For Restricted Or Sensitive Data
As a business owner, you have to be careful of where your data is housed, along with the methods of accessing it. If you handle highly sensitive data in your business, you can store it in single-purpose servers to keep it from being shared or accessed by unauthorized people by accident.
This data should only be accessed through the use of passwords, and only by specific individuals.
Additionally, multiple authentications should be required to download this data.
2. Use An Up-To-Date Antivirus
All your company computers and devices need to have an antivirus installed that can prevent infection by viruses and malware. However, before you purchase an antivirus, you need to be aware of your business needs, as there are several categories of antiviruses, each one tailored for a different purpose.
In addition, you may want to ensure that your workers are trained on using the antivirus to prevent them from falling victim to the latest trends in phishing. They should be taught how to update the antivirus as well. A strong antivirus software can go a long way in securing your data.
3. Install An Automatic Backup
One of the most effective data security measures you can have in your business is an automatic data backup. Depending on the nature and the vulnerability of the data used in your business, you can choose how regularly it should be backed up. Data backup is important for several reasons. Mainly, it ensures that you have a restore point in case of calamities that can destroy your servers, such as fires or earthquakes. After such a disaster, business operations can easily be restored from the backup center.
4. Encrypt Your Data
Encryption is essential, especially when you’re sending information through the internet. Encrypted data is not transmitted in the same way it appears in the original documents; thus, if a hacker succeeds in getting it, it would be meaningless, since they don’t have the decryption key. Once the data has been received, the key to access the information can be sent separately.
5. Design A Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Your networking engineer or in-house IT technicians may come in handy in designing a VPN for your organization. The importance of a VPN is that it’s accessible to your employees only. In addition, your VPN may have an extra layer of security, such as a firewall, which is an authentication protocol that keeps out all unauthorized traffic. For better protection with your firewall, you can use the two-factor authentication protocol.
Moreover, your virtual private network can be designed such that only the devices registered to the network can operate in it. Otherwise, to use an unregistered device, you need to have the firewall authentication details.
6. Use A Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Software
A DLP software is an intelligent system programmed with rules that monitor how outbound data is transferred across the network. This software can detect whether data is being off-loaded to an unauthorized device, and it will send alerts whenever the set rules are violated. Then the security operation center can review the alerts and take the necessary action to safeguard against potential leak of personally identifiable information (PII).
Wrapping Up
Business data is an asset that should be kept private and protected against loss, unauthorized access, or leakage. Thus, every business should identify their data security needs. If you don’t have an in-house team to spearhead your data security protocols, you may want to hire experts from a data security agency. However, whether you use in-house professionals or an agency, just know that the tips above can be implemented to help ensure that all your data are always secure.
