For every organization, it’s of great importance to keep all the information safe. Not only if you’re working with sensitive data, but also when you’re working with personal data. It would be a great nightmare when your business information would get into the hands of cybercriminals. It’s never good when company information falls into the wrong hands. For that reason, we give you a couple of tips for keeping your details safe and manage your data in a proper way.
Page Contents
Create awareness
source:unsplash.com
First of all, it’s of utmost importance that everyone in the company is aware of the consequences of an (unintentional) data breach. Only if all your employees are aware of the risks and know how to work safely, it’s possible to secure all your business details. For example, teach your employees what safe passwords are and which passwords are not safe. Teach them how to handle their own personal specifics, but also the information of their coworkers. Let them know how they can make back-ups and how they can recognize phishing emails.
However, it may seem obvious when you are aware of the risks; some of your employees need some extra guidelines or help in this kind of subject. Besides that, it’s also good to remind them sometimes! When you’re a team manager, you can do this for your company, or ask the IT department to help you out. Doesn’t your company have those resources? Then you can also ask an external agency to give training, for example.
Passwords
As we mentioned before, when you don’t use strong passwords, the company data will be vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Therefore, setting strong passwords is the foundation of securing your business. In order to protect the information, don’t let your employees use the same password for different accounts, platforms, etc. If remembering the several passwords is a problem (as we can imagine), it might be good to use a special program for this. With plugins like LastPass, you have a well-secured, personal password vault in which you can store all the passwords.
Do you handle sensitive information? Make sure you always use two-step verification. It’s a small effort, and it protects your organization’s details against external risks.
Examine the infrastructure
Both of you’re employed at a company for a long time or when you haven’t much expertise, it can be difficult to spot security vulnerabilities. Therefore, it is important to take a look into the security on a regular basis and to re-examine the infrastructure. If you don’t have IT-experts working in your organization, make sure you have a professional check it once in a while. There are numerous IT companies that can examine your IT-infrastructure, and they can also report which improvements can be made. With a fresh look at the infrastructure, you can be sure that all risks are properly identified.
Working in the cloud
source:techopedia.com
Are you currently storing all your data locally? When you store your it locally, there is a greater risk of loss compared to storing information in the cloud. It’s more secure to store your details in the cloud. Besides that, with the cloud you don’t run the risk of losing information when a laptop gets lost or when a fire breaks out.
Storing business details in the cloud also provides another great advantage: the data is available, always and anywhere. This makes it easy for employees to function from other locations and from other devices. This is very nice, considering that working as a digital nomad is becoming more and more popular.
Take working digitally in account
source:unsplash.com
Working from home, from a cafe, or from a remote island, everything is possible these days. As long as you have an internet connection, you can do activities from wherever you want. Terms for this type of work are flexible, be active from a mobile, or working ‘the new way.’ The conclusion to this is that employees are no longer tied to certain hours or an office; they are much more flexible. This way of working offers many advantages because employees can organize their time more efficiently, are often more productive, and they are generally happier with their jobs.
But when employees are working in this way, the risk of a data breach becomes bigger. For that matter, it’s a good idea to rethink how safe the laptops and mobile phones of your employees are. The risks are not only in the hardware and software but also in the networks that they use. To protect the connection, it’s also a good idea to use a VPN.
Monitoring the environment
source:blog.eccouncil.org
Once the company data is properly secured, you are unfortunately not ready yet. When at one moment your IT environment is well protected, cybercriminals keep developing themselves. For that reason, security is a continuous process. Monitoring the IT environment is of utmost importance. Of course, you don’t have to do this all by yourself. There are several companies that are specialized in data protection and monitoring. When you outsource your information protection, you don’t have to worry about it!
Get help
source:regions.com
We can imagine that it is quite a job to keep your business data safe. Even after reading the tips above, securing all information is not easy. If you have your own IT department within the organization, they will be aware of the largest part and are always busy to protect all company data as well as possible. If you do not have an internal IT department, it is important to think about a good solution to protect the details. It is recommended to engage an external party for this. That costs a bit, but if the company information is stolen by cybercriminals, it will cost you a lot more.
The tips above are just the base of securing company data. Get familiar with this subject, or make sure you use the help of experts.
References:
https://henr.nl/datacenter-infrastructuur/
