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.
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