The difficulty in protecting your data is that threats come from so many different sources. It could be a data breach, it could be a burglar, or it could be an ex-employee. We must know what it takes to protect our business better. Here are some steps that you should have in place.
Making Sure Your Employees Conduct Due Diligence
The first thing to address is if your employees have some basic understanding that can prevent data breaches from occurring. Employees are, in fact, the first line of defense, and there are many things you can give your employees to make sure that they understand if a breach is in progress. For example, you could give them a URL malware scanner so they can check out websites or you can give them an email verifier tool so they think twice about the impact on the company. However, this is nothing if you don’t give them the training. Making sure they know what good cybersecurity or protection looks like is critical.
Having Legal Support
Operating a business is an essential practice that demands a variety of support. Legal help may be something that’s far from your mind, but when you need one, you need one quickly. Running a small business means that you don’t have the time to understand the minutiae of legalities and the ramifications of poor practices. From payments to protection, a great business attorney can answer all of your queries.
Controlling Data Use
You should ensure that every employee has access to the data they need, and nothing more. The best way to do this is to prioritize sensitive data and increase the levels of protection around them, for example by incorporating two-factor authentication. This is a very useful protocol when using Customer Resource Management (CRM) systems because more levels of access can greatly control the use of the data.
Being Up-To-Date
A very simple thing that makes a massive difference is updating those software patches. Many organizations put off their updates, however, if an update is available on Thursday morning, it’s important to make sure that it’s done by Friday evening. Updates are there to fix bugs in the systems and ensure the software is operating as it should. This is especially pivotal for businesses that operate with the cloud.
Being Ready for Disaster
Finally, protecting your business is not just about the data, although this comprises a lot of it. Instead of just focusing on your data, think about the big picture, and protect your business and your employees through a number of essential practices. When disaster strikes, it’s vital to follow the backup plan but also have an emergency fund in place. Many small businesses don’t operate with emergencies in mind, which is why you have to look for the weak points in your organization, and rather than praying something doesn’t happen, genuinely looking for ways external forces can breach your business will help you look after those weak points, meaning that your business is not going to be on the receiving end of a data breach and the knock-on effects, such as being fined or having lost the trust of customers.
Leave a Reply