Whatever size your business is, protecting your data from prying eyes is a top priority. Data leaks are a severe problem for any business and can result in financial loss, embarrassment, regulatory issues, and more. The leaked data can be of any type, such as personal data, financial data, confidential business data, or confidential marketing data. Nevertheless, it doesn’t need to be this way, and there are various techniques you can utilize to reduce and even eliminate leakage.
Why Is Data Leakage Bad For Business?
Personal information is not the only thing that nefarious actors can steal. Companies store a lot of their intellectual property and trade secrets on electronic devices. The more popular and valuable these assets are, the more often they are put on digital devices. As a result, they are more vulnerable to data breaches. For example, a company could have records of patents for new products stored in the cloud that might not even be available to consumers yet. If there were a data breach, this information would leak out to competitors and cost them billions of dollars in lost revenue from patents being copied or shared with others who may duplicate or compete with them in the marketplace for those new products.
How Can You Ensure That Your Data Is Safe?
How you secure your data will vary, whether it is physical data or electronic. Material data is often easier to protect because there is one copy. Nevertheless, to be completely safe, you should understand ways to secure online and offline data to guarantee total security.
Physical Data
This type of data is often related to paperwork. Some examples include law firms usually required by law to keep physical copies of their data for specific periods, often five years or more in some cases. However, when the time limit expires, they have mountains in their possession that they must destroy. However, shredding mountains of paperwork is impossible when you have to deal with a huge pile. Fortunately, there exist companies who provide this service. Before you go directly to service, you should find out the pertinent laws in your jurisdiction. For example, laws surrounding document shredding in Melbourne might differ from those in Boston or Paris. The critical point is to ensure that you fully understand what the law requires in your specific jurisdiction before you go shredding. Additionally, the disposal methods of the shredded documents will differ from country to country. These documents contain sensitive data and cannot be thrown out at will. Typically, these companies will need to shred it and then dispose of it lawfully.
Online Data
Online data security can at times be a challenge, but at other times it can be more straightforward than physical data. This is because you don’t have to address the waste issue. Nevertheless, it can be more complex due to the overall complexity of computing and data regulations. So what are some methods you can use to secure your data online and prevent potentially business-destroying leaks?
Decide Which Data Is Critical
The data that is worth securing the most are those that significantly impact the company’s success. This data generally includes:
- Financial records.
- Customer information.
- Intellectual property.
- Trade secrets.
The first step in securing this data is to identify it by assigning a value to it based on how much of an impact it could have on your company’s success.
Monitoring Activity And Access
One of the essential steps is to monitor who is accessing your valuable data. This can be employees in your own company or people outside who need specific data to complete an outsourced task. Luckily, the world of the cloud has made it far more straightforward to provide access to specific data to certain people. As a result, you can compartmentalize your data as much as possible using a need-to-know basis. In any case, you or the management team must keep a close eye on it and be able to react accordingly if they discover an unauthorized intrusion.
Install Firewalls
A firewall is a security system that can protect a company’s computer networks from unauthorized access. The primary function is to block or allow the passage of specific data packets between two network segments. The most common firewall usage is to block unauthorized access to private networks, like the data in your office workstation. But firewalls can also be used in public places like libraries and coffee shops, where they are necessary to protect the people working on their laptops. A firewall can be either hardware or software-based. They can vary largely in complexity and ability depending on what type of device it is protecting and what level of protection it needs.
Secure your backups
Many businesses make the mistake that once they have backed up their data, it is safe enough. The fact is, this is not always the case, as can be seen with recent consumer-based backup issues. While this specific example was directed towards consumer products, the fact remains that it can still occur in enterprise-grade data centers. To fully protect your backups, you must follow the 3 2 1 data backup rule. This states that you need 3 forms of backup, keeping 2 records of your data on separate storage mediums, and have at least 1 copy off-site. Your onsite backups should not be network-connected (unless required, in which you should use stringent security protocols). Your off-site backup should be in a location specializing in data security.
Monitor Inbound And Outbound Emails
If you have a technical department, they should set up systems that enable management to monitor all emails to check whether sensitive data is being received or sent. This can occur from malicious intent or can be from an accident. Emails are typically sent in plaintext, meaning that there is no encryption. Therefore, even if an employee sends an internal email, it could be intercepted and the data stolen with minimal effort. In addition to monitoring, you should have extensive training that covers the correct usage of email.
Being a business owner means that you must be aware of password security, especially if you have sensitive data. This includes anything from customer databases, intellectual property, and financial records. But the truth is, if your sensitive data is in the wrong hands, you may face costly legal action and even civil and criminal fines if the information is compromised. Luckily, there are many ways to protect your business data.
