Data breaches are all too common in the 21st Century and even some of the biggest corporations including eBay and Equifax have been victims of malicious hacking events. Big corporations may be able to weather the storm of bad publicity that comes with a data breach and come through the other side, but could you?
Smaller companies tend not to have the resources to recover as effectively from bad publicity, not to mention downtime, that comes with a serious breach, which is why you need to do everything in your power to prevent data breaches from happening in the first place.
With that in mind, here are some top tips to help you keep your company’s data secure:
Develop a written strategy
Developing a comprehensive list of cybersecurity and data protection policies and procedures is the first step to keeping your business data safe. Think of every possible thing that could go wrong and ensure you have a policy in place to mitigate it from happening. Ensure all staff, not just the IT team, are briefed, and be sure to stress just how important it is that your strategy is adhered to.
Create a security culture
Often, data breaches are caused by the people in your organization not being as security conscious as they could be, which is why you need to learn how to create a security culture in your organization. Even something as simple as opening a dodgy email can result in a serious breach so this is really very important. Furthermore, having a data protection officer in-house will allow you to seek consultation for any further policy you introduce to ensure that it is compliant with data protection law and general security of use. Utilizing in-house DPO companies ensures there is consistent oversight and monitoring of data protection. You can also rely on them to be immediately available in circumstances such as a data breach, and communicate efficiently within the business.
Install malware protection
Installing malware and antivirus protection on every single device that connects to your business network even once is imminently sensible, and one of the most basic things you can do to protect your business from attacks. So, make sure you have a firewall in place, invest in the most sophisticated security packages you can afford, and don’t let anyone use a personal device on the work network unless they too have all the protections in place. In fact, if it is possible to do so, don’t let employees turn on personal devices in the workplace at all.
Encrypt everything
From your Wi-Fi network to your client files, if it can be encrypted, it probably should be. That way, if hackers do gain access to your network and your files, it will be much harder, almost impossible, for them to do any damage.
Limit access
When it comes to sensitive data, limiting access to only those people who really need access is an imminently sensible thing to do.
Conduct background checks
Before anyone is allowed to work for you and access sensitive files, you should conduct a background check to ascertain that there is nothing in tier background that could make them vulnerable to leaking information or inadvertently not following the security procedures you have in place.