Tip of the Week: 4 Components to Keeping Data Safe

Your business is bound to collect a sizable cache of data, a significant percentage of which being the kind used to identify someone. This is exactly the kind of data that cybercriminals are looking for, which means it needs to be protected. Here, we’re covering the basics of how you can help secure your data’s integrity against cybercrime.

Knowing What You Have

If you don’t have an accurate idea of the data you possess, how can you possibly keep it all protected? Without this information, it becomes far more likely that you will, at some point, experience a breach.

Keeping impeccable records of your assets is imperative to avoiding this outcome. These records should contain a comprehensive collection of data in a well-organized and documented format. If your storage architecture could use a bit of a refresh, take advantage of that time to properly build out and implement this strategy. Using a specified architecture makes it much easier to manage the permissions of your users, as well, so it can further boost your data security.

These considerations only become more important as you accumulate more and more data, and your team and clients alike entrust you with theirs. Betraying that trust would be a bad look for your business, so you need to be sure that you are subscribing to best practices.

Sorting Through Your Data

Once you know what you have and where it is kept, you should commit yourself to weeding through it all. How much of the data you’ve collected is really needed to support your business’ operations, and are there alternative methods to consider that might help keep this data safer while accomplishing the same thing?

For instance, unless you still need them for business purposes, it isn’t wise to retain customer payment details for any longer than necessary. This just increases the opportunity for this sensitive data to be undermined and stolen.

Furthermore, you should also be reexamining who in your business can access what. Different roles will naturally have different responsibilities, each of which will bring different data access requirements. Providing excessive access is opening the door to potential data security issues.

Keeping Your Data Safe

Finally, you need to make sure that you are prepared to protect the data you collect, which will require a lot. You need to have a predetermined storage strategy, complete with proposed defenses, identifying the devices used to store this data and the access controls to prevent unauthorized users from tampering with it. This goes for both digital versions of your data, as well as any hard copies you have.

In case someone manages to breach your defenses and access your data, you need to be capable of identifying the breach at its source and preventing as much damage as possible. This is why we promote the use of both proactive monitoring services and comprehensive backup practices… they can more effectively enable you to bounce back from such a breach.

If you would like assistance in implementing these solutions, or want more information about them, don’t hesitate to reach out to Walsh IT Group. Our team is ready to assist you, you just need to give us a call at (832) 295-1445.