Safeguarding Sensitive Data Within Your Own Company
As a company owner, you can’t afford to compromise your entire company’s database due to even the slightest oversight. While it used to be a bit easier back in the days when people didn’t rely on the internet as much, the prevalence of cloud technology is making it much easier to connect to each other… as well as expose your business to possible data breaches. How, then, can you keep your business safe from the prying eyes of illegal hackers? Here are a few tips you can use to add a few more layers of protection to your company’s sensitive data on the cloud:
Provide Limited Access to Certain Employees
You may be surprised just how many people in management make all business data available to everybody in the team, department, or company. They do this with the idea that making things easy to access for everybody will enable them to act much faster during moments of crisis, since they can easily find what they need even if the originally assigned person is not around to take care of the situation. However, opening up your data to all people in all departments carries severe security risks. For instance, those who may not need to look at sensitive client data can grab this information and make a run for it.
Keep Your Personal and Business Data Separated
With the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement growing in popularity, businesses are actually increasing the possibility of exposing the whole enterprise to major security risks. After all, even if you can guarantee that the workstations within your office are up-to-date in terms of anti-virus and anti-malware software, how can you be sure that your employees are as vigilant about using secure apps on their own personal devices? Make sure to enforce a policy that dictates what company information is allowed on employee-owned gadgets, and how they are expected to encrypt this data for the whole business’s safety.
Make Sure to Use Strong Encryption Methods
If you will be encrypting your data, you have to make sure that you are actually using a system that will make it marginally difficult for hackers to crack. Otherwise, you may have just delayed an attack by mere minutes, if not a few seconds. Even if your goal is to save on money, do not scrimp on cloud security solutions, as the costs of any data leaks will definitely outweigh the savings you made from using older but more vulnerable technologies.
In Conclusion: Put Up as Many Walls as You Can
Utilizing only one method of protection can leave you incredibly vulnerable to attacks, but by putting more barriers into place, you can ward off any unscrupulous individuals, and perhaps make it difficult enough for them to finally give up. By practicing these tips and staying vigilant, hackers should have a hard time trying to get into your systems, and you should be able to keep your company’s sensitive data safe thanks to the help of your employees.
