close
In today’s cybersecurity landscape, businesses of all sizes and in every industry are potential targets for cybercriminals. If your organization has put off implementing data security policies in the past, you’re merely biding time before a data breach interferes with your operations. If you’re ready to take a more proactive approach to protecting your clients, employees, and bottom line, these are the five critical questions you need to be asking about data security.
1. Are You Encrypting Data?
Without data encryption, you’re essentially leaving your network operations and data visible to anyone with access to your system. In the event of a network breach or a stolen device, cybercriminals can quickly compromise your entire network if data isn’t encrypted. At the same time, unencrypted data transmission leaves data vulnerable to outside parties.
The most straightforward solution to these threats is endpoint encryption. By encrypting data at every stage of transmission and storage, you can be confident that only users with the requisite permissions have access to your mission-critical data. Even if a device is lost or stolen, data encryption protects your organization’s broader network.
2. How Are You Controlling Access Permissions?
If everyone in your organization has access to the same mission-critical data, it’s only a matter of time before private data ends up in the wrong hands. Take the time to plan and implement strict user access controls to ensure your employees only have access to the data they need to do their jobs. Implementing a set of defined rules for users starts by clarifying data as sensitive and nonsensitive. From there, permission should only be granted on a need-to-know basis.
On top of implementing meticulous user access controls, you should also secure the platforms through which your team accesses sensitive data. At the minimum, your platforms should be secured with unique usernames and passwords. On top of basic usernames and passwords, it’s also a smart idea to protect sensitive data by implementing more advanced security tools like Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).
3. How Are You Preparing for Disaster?
In today’s workplace, when your network stops working, so does your team. That’s why it’s critical to have disaster recovery policies and strategies in place to protect your day-to-day operations. When disaster strikes, you can expect lost revenue, missed opportunities, and dissatisfied customers. However, with proper disaster preparedness platforms in place, you can significantly mitigate the harm done to your business. From redundant cloud backups to network failover systems, leveraging disaster recovery and business continuity systems quickly pays for itself in the event of a network breach or outage.
4. Are You Tracking Security Events?
To prepare your organization for ever-changing security threats, your business needs to be tracking those threats. Logging security threats is not only critical to establishing a paper trail for how you’re protecting data, it’s also an essential part of preparing for threats in the future. In the event of an audit, your team will be able to prove they’ve done their due diligence by spotting and resolving any security events, ensuring accountability.
5. Are You Updating Privacy Policies?
As data becomes increasingly akin to a form of currency, how you’re actively protecting employee, client, and sensitive data is a direct reflection of your organization. Similarly, consumers have become increasingly aware of how their information is being collected and used. As you collect and store increasing amounts of data, you need practical policies in place to ensure the security of your systems. Doing so not only benefits your organization with an improved public image, it also helps protect against lawsuits and noncompliance penalties.
Once you’ve implemented a comprehensive privacy policy, the job isn’t yet done. Your team also needs to be continually refining and evolving those policies as the privacy landscape changes. With developing security vulnerabilities and changing stakeholders, your privacy policies need to respond and adapt as your organization grows.
The Data Protection Experts
If your organization is ready to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow with next-level data security solutions, contact the experts at Pure IT today. We’ll work with you to pinpoint your organization’s specific security vulnerabilities and develop a more robust cybersecurity platform around your needs and goals.
