The Best Guide On Company Data Protection

Technology is great. It’s helped us expand our knowledge, grow our businesses and make more money than ever before! But the world is nothing if not balanced, for there will always be a yang to the yin.

With cybercrime on the rise, business owners need to prepare for this new threat to their livelihoods. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that cybercrime will incur losses in excess of $6 trillion by the year 2021. This might come as a surprise, but $3 trillion were already lost by 2015!

This market is more lucrative for criminals than the supply of all illegal drugs combined. With legislations and governments unable to keep up with evolving technology, it’s up to us to fend for ourselves. Thankfully, there are a lot of things we can do to safeguard our information.

Keep reading for a complete low-down on company data protection.

Strong Passwords Are Important

Be honest— how many different passwords do you really use? We all know it’s recommended to use different passwords for each account, but most of us rarely follow this advice. After all, it’s just much easier to remember one password.

However, it’s just little things like these that can end up costing millions in losses. Something as simple as using different passwords for different accounts can reduce your chances of suffering from cybercrime significantly. If you can’t remember all the different passwords, there are lots of password management software available online that provide randomly generated passwords and maximum security.

But that’s not enough. An effective company data protection policy will involve a regular change of passwords. The longer you keep the same passwords, the more susceptible they are to getting hacked. You should be changing passwords at least a few times a year for optimum security.

When choosing new passwords, make sure that they’re long and complicated. Using something cryptic is your best bet. Here are a few suggestions for strong passwords:

· Make sure they’re at least 8 characters long.

· Don’t include any recognizable parts of your name/phone number/ID.

· Use a mixture of lower-case letters, numbers, upper case letters, and symbols like %, $, @, &, etc.

Protecting Info at Your Work Station

At work, your desktop can be a vulnerable point. If you have a habit of leaving your computer on when you leave the desk, you could be putting your company at risk.

Someone doesn’t even need to have malicious intent to see something they’re not meant to see. Consider this: you’re working on a project with sensitive information and your colleague comes in to ask you for a smoke. You go down for your five to ten-minute break but leave the computer on. Now someone else comes in to your office to look for you and accidentally sees the information on your desktop. The data is now compromised!

To prevent small slipups like this, follow these tips:

· Lock your computer whenever you step away from it. Change the settings so that it requires a password every time you wake it up.

· Don’t keep a list of your passwords on your desk.

· Pick up all the documents you print or copy as soon as possible.

· Store sensitive documents in a secure place.

Learn to Detect Phishing Schemes

Phishing schemes usually show up in the form of emails. They’re fake messages drafted cleverly (sometimes not) by cybercriminals who want to hack your identity and credit. Their main goal is to gain access to your computer and network to reach sensitive company information.

They often take the form of something you trust, like your bank or your broadband suppliers. Phishing emails will usually contain some sort of attachments or links that they will ask you to download. This is usually malware or a hacking program that bypasses your company data protection protocols.

Delete these emails without ever opening them. Ask yourself these questions to detect phishing emails:

· Does the email come from someone you know?

· Were you expecting the email?

· Does it come from a person who has sent you emails before?

· Does it just look odd?

Encryption is Your Best Friend

Encryption is one of the most powerful cybersecurity tools you can use. What encryption basically does is that it scrambles your data until it is unrecognizable. The only way to access the correct form of the data is to enter the set passkey and decrypt it.

The biggest benefit here is that even if your files are stolen or duplicated, they are pretty much useless to that person unless they have the passkey. Plus, you don’t have to be a tech wiz to encrypt your data. You can find plenty of user-friendly encryption tools online that will do the job for you.

Encrypt everything! This includes all your hard drives, external drives and any other storage. Your computer is not the only thing that needs encryption either. Smartphones, tablets, e-mails, USBs and anywhere else your data might be. A complete encryption ecosystem will ensure company data protection and help you fight cybercrime.

Consider the Cloud

It sounds a bit daunting to put all your company’s data on the cloud, but it’s actually much safer than storing it on your company’s system. Cloud service providers are experts in data security, and storing your company’s data with a reputable cloud service provider is the best form of cybersecurity.

Conclusion

To finish up, here are a few more company data protection tips:

· Train your employees about cybersecurity and make sure they understand the importance of it.

· Save only the data you need. Too many businesses keep too much information about their consumers. Keep the information you need and delete the rest.

· Conduct background checks before you hire anyone.

By following these steps and staying vigilant, you can protect yourself against the latest looming threat facing the business world.