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These days, businesses need to be doing everything that they can to protect sensitive data. Not only do they have a legal and ethical responsibility to do so, but a data breach could destroy a business and cause a number of serious issues to manage. Data protection needs to be a priority regardless of the business’s size or the industry they are in, so how can a business go about protecting sensitive data? There are a handful of ways to do this, which should help prevent any data loss, so keep reading to find out how to achieve this.
Cybersecurity Products
First, businesses need to make sure that they have the right cybersecurity products in place that can help to protect from and remove threats. There are a few key products that businesses need to be using that will increase the safety in your business, including
- Antivirus software
- VPN
- Firewall
Develop A Data Protection Strategy
It is also important that a formal IT security strategy is in place. This will outline the rules and expected behaviors for using and managing data safely, including an incidents-response strategy to mitigate damage in the event of a data breach.
Use Access Control
You also need to think about who has access to sensitive data and user access control to ensure that only those that need it can access it. Many big data breaches come from staff negligence (and sometimes malicious internal attacks), so access control can help prevent this from happening and reduce risk.
Employee Training
Following on from this, you also need to use staff training to prevent these data breaches from happening due to negligence. Cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly advanced and rely on social engineering tactics, which means that training is essential and will help your team to be able to spot and avoid threats like phishing attacks.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
DLP controls data and makes sure that sensitive information is kept within the corporate network. DLP products from places like Proofpoint use business rules to classify and protect sensitive data and are particularly useful when data privacy laws are stringent and internal threats can be a major issue for small businesses to manage (internal breaches account for 43% of data breaches).
Back Data Up
Another important step that organizations need to take to protect sensitive data is to back up data externally. Backing up to an external device like a hard drive will ensure that you always have another copy available if there is any kind of issue, such as a data breach resulting in damage, stolen, or corrupted data. This must be done on a regular basis so your backups are kept up to date. Data centres can be a great place to back up data externally. You can learn more about this with Macquarie Data Centres.
These are the main strategies to protect data and should help a business to avoid any cybercrime issues. This needs to be a priority in today’s day and age with such strong regulations surrounding data usage along with the sharp increase in cybercrime, so prioritizing cybersecurity and data protection is vital for your business’s future.
