The current business environment is tough. You do not just fight your competitors to increase sales and profits, but you also have to fight against cybercriminals in order to protect the sensitive information within your company.
The data you store is an important valuable business asset. Because it is an essential element in ensuring the continuity and success of your business and continuity, it’s only fair to safeguard it from misuse.
Data may be a range of customer and employee information to marketing and sales strategies. You must manage and safeguard it properly to decrease the risk of a security breach which can lead to complications like litigation, damage to reputation and even loss of profits.
Cybersecurity is an essential aspect of business, especially in the event that you depend on technology to run your business. If you place more emphasis on security, the more likely you are making sure your private business information is protected from cyber-attacks. There are a variety of methods to ensure that.
Below, we’ll discuss the top ten methods to safeguard confidential information in your company.
Post Contents
Do a data inventory
The first step to ensure that confidential office data is to create an accurate list of your possessions to know what information you should be protecting.
Making a complete inventory of information assets of your company can help you understand:
- Where your information is coming from
- the type of information you gather
- the location where it is stored
- the individuals who can access it.
- the way your employees use how your staff uses it
- which information to prioritize
The process of conducting a the inventory of data is a must for your company. Take note of all departments that have and deal with data. This exercise will give you insight into the state of your entire data collection and will help you choose the best ways to safeguard it.
Remember that each business procedure is different. Thus, the method you use to manage your inventory of data might differ from the typical procedure.
Begin to note down the goals you’d like to accomplish within your inventory of data, and then begin to build from that point on.
If this is too laborious You can always seek out an controlled IT service provider that is known for performing data inventories. In this way, you’ll be able to see the state of your data in terms of organization use, security, and usage.
Just keep the things you will need
Although you’d wish to keep all the information coming into your business for all time however, this isn’t feasible for a number of reasons.
It will first be a problem when it comes to storage of data. The larger the amount of storage of your data the greater your cost of storage for your data and the more difficult it becomes to manage. The best way to get the most of your data storage is to save the most important ones. After that, you can digitally destroy the ones you don’t use.
Then, you’ll end up in violation of data privacy laws when you keep the data for longer than is necessary. It is essential to think about compliance guidelines when storing personal data of customers. Note the mandatory minimum retention times and other obligations first.
The most important thing to do to keep your company’s information secure is to control only the information you need. The idea of hoarding data is not an excellent idea.
Use only private networks.
Since there was a sudden rise in remote working setups the number of cyber-attacks grew with it.
The companies had very little or have any control over the networks their employees were connected to as they may work on their own home network or in the coffee shop. This could be a risk to your security because people who have access with the network could observe your online activities.
To keep your private data secure, it is recommended to install VPNs to conceal your identity and secure your connections if you’re on the public network shared by others.
If there is no VPN isn’t accessible or not available, you can choose a personal hotspot that is password-secured to limit the possibility of hackers monitoring your activities, particularly in the case of an encrypted file.
Provide security awareness training to your employees
Your employees are typically the weakest link when it comes to protecting sensitive information within your company.
According to IBM that 95% of security incidents are caused by human errors.
One way to avoid being one of those statistics and to effectively safeguard confidential information is to hold two-yearly security awareness classes to your staff. In this way, they’ll be aware of what they need to accomplish and exactly what they should keep an eye for.
Control access to the control system
A company that restricts access to its private information has a better likelihood of reducing the risk of data breaches than businesses that do not.
To protect the security and privacy of your company’s information be sure to share them only with employees on an “need to know” basis. This access control procedure applies to both hard and soft versions of the documents.
Make sure to keep hard copies of them in a locked safe and secure them with a password for soft copies.
It is also an option when you keep data on a removable drive.
Secure stored data
The encryption tool is the best choice in the fight to maintain data confidentiality.
It adds an additional level of protection to files to shield it from unauthorized access. Businesses that use encryption to protect sensitive files prior to sending them to the cloud have one less security issue to be concerned about.
To protect private documents, it is recommended to also secure files, particularly restricted ones, even if they’re just being stored on your network. Make this a security rule for your employees and make sure they’re confident about this procedure.
Secure files prior to sending them
File encryption is your most trusted partner when you send confidential files online. This technique helps protect your data especially in the event that an unauthorised person gets your email. It is also recommended to make use of reliable service providers when sharing your email, but be sure to secure them prior to sharing.
The same applies for physical files with confidential information. Use only courier companies you trust to safeguard your personal information.
Better yet, ask someone from your organization to pick it up to ensure its security.
Remove old information
Paperwork is still a vital function in business’s day-today activities in this digital age.
Typically, when companies need to dispose of hard copies of their confidential information then they put it through a shredder, or throw it into the trash can that is designated for disposal. But the process of deleting digital copies to make better is much more complex than the previous method.
We recently published an article on whether those files have disappeared good once you have removed your files from the Recycle Bin.
Set up a cyber security plan
An organization that doesn’t have having a cyber security plan is only one step away from digital catastrophe.
When handling sensitive data such as customer details as well as inventory data, it is important to be able to establish clear guidelines on how to manage them and make sure they are secure.
A cyber security plan plays an a crucial role today more than ever as more workers prefer working from home instead of in the office. If the policy is successfully implemented the team will be more effective in protecting confidential data anywhere.
Your cyber security policies should match the way that your business is run.
Make sure you are specific regarding the security measures you have in your security policy. For example, you should only use secure passwords for your corporate accounts, and enabling two-factor authentication.
Use this template for cyber security policies to find out more about what you need to and shouldn’t put in your cyber security policy.
Make sure you have a backup plan
Backup your data can safeguard your company in the event that you’re victimized by an attack on your computer, such as ransomware.
If you don’t have access to your data, your company comes to a halt. This could lead to loss of profit as well as reputational damage and possibly even a business closing.
To protect yourself from this, ensure that you have backups of both cloud and physical copies of your information that you are able to access at any time in the event of an emergency. However, to fully benefit from this method, it is essential to ensure that your backups are up to the current date.
If you require assistance to establish a secure cyber security strategy for your company Your friendly IT security and support experts will be happy to assist.
