Cyber Security

The news channels are full of reports about companies that had their customers’ details, private information, and their corporate secrets lost or exposed, shared, and it seems like some managers don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes. If you would like to protect your company’s reputation, it is important that you have a thorough security policy in place and you train your employees on handling data safely. Below you’ll find a few reasons why all companies should take IT security seriously.

It Can Cause Long Term Reputation Damage

If your company happens to accidentally disclose customer information and data, you will no longer be trusted in your marketplace. It is easier to prevent problems than dealing with the consequences. You need to draw up a customer charter, and take data protection very seriously. If you fail to safeguard private information, you will be exposed sooner or later, and it will take long years or decades to rebuild trust.

Legal Challenges

If you share customer data with those who are not authorized to view it, or it gets compromised, the victims might sue you for negligence. If you don’t have effective guidelines, policies, and systems in place, you will need to defend your company’s practices in the courtroom. Legal challenges regarding data protection and security are lengthy and can cost your company a lot of money, time, and resources.

Loss of Customers

If you cannot be trusted with sensitive information, your customers will sooner or later leave you and look for a competitor that promises to look out for their interest better. You will find that acquiring new customers will be much harder and more expensive than keeping your old ones. It is important that you install some tech features that monitor your IT security, so you don’t end up losing your customers.

Disruption of Operation

If your information is compromised, lost, or stolen, you will have no chance to carry on with your business operation as usual. This will cost you a lot of money. While some data can be recovered by professionals, such as www.datafirst.co.za, it will be a lengthy process. Restoring your files and systems will also cost you man hours and productivity.

Cost Savings

In modern businesses, productivity and efficiency are the key to success. You need to be more productive and meet your customers’ needs better than your competition, or you will lose the game. It is important that you get your company computers and networks checked regularly, and you are addressing different security threats, such as fraud, spyware, virus, and malware. If you are unable to prevent disaster, you will have to pay the price. Getting your security software regularly checked and updated will cost you much less than addressing a data security attack.

Whether you are looking to maintain your company’s reputation or productivity, data security and system maintenance should be one of your main priorities. Get your computers checked, backup your files, and prevent unauthorized access whenever you can.

Cyber attacks are an integral part of the digital world, but small firms are rather more vulnerable as they may not be able to invest heavily in security systems. As an owner of a tech business, you probably have a security process in place to protect your proprietary data. But if you are operating small-scale, it could simply prove an overhead. Either way, here are 10 tips to safeguard your business data in a more (cost) effective manner.

1. Have a Security System in Place

You must have a security policy, process and system in place, even if it just authorises/controls physical access into the premises or restricted areas. This can help tackle possible internal threats quite effectively, which otherwise may prove costly when undetected for a long time.

2. Opt for Business-Specific Gadget Insurance

Make sure to invest in gadget insurance for business to cover loss or damage of expensive smartphones, laptops and other portable or stationary gadgets and equipment used for business purposes.

3. Identify Valuable Data

Identify and classify sensitive data valuable or crucial to your business operations, to protect it better. Details of business offerings, partners, customers/clients, sales forecast, personnel, financial health, and intellectual property (when stolen or lost) may result in heavy consequences.

4. Change Passwords at Regular Intervals

Use software to generate new passwords at preset intervals or enforce password standards across the firm to ensure that employees don’t use the same password for different software/systems, or for more than the stipulated time period. Organised password management makes it difficult for accidental hackers to freely move through the system.

5. Enforce Two-Step Authentication

Do not rely on a single password when enabling access to sensitive data. It is possible to set-up multiple levels of authentication and permit just few employees to handle confidential information, only if and when needed. This will help track internal security breaches if any quite effectively.

6. Ensure Efficient Patch Management

You cannot afford to ignore software updates/patches as they not only fix inherent functional issues and security lapses but also enhance robustness of the system to counter newer forms of cyber threats. Systematic patch management is a must to keep hackers and malware at bay.

7. Adopt Data Encryption

Storing and transmitting business-centric classified information in encrypted formats makes it difficult for miscreants to use the details even if they manage to acquire it. Invest in suitable data encryption options to safeguard crucial data.

8. Backup and Recovery

Hosting your business on the cloud could prove a safe alternative, but there could be nothing more comforting than a latest data backup on hand during a ransom ware attack or total data loss due to other reasons.

9. Judicious Use of Email

Reportedly, most phishing and malware are triggered by file attachments or links circulated via mail. Deleting mail from unknown senders can prevent malware attacks to a great extent.

10. Educate/Train Staff on Data Security

Generating awareness on data security and cyber crimes, training staff to detect and report on suspected security breaches, and following security processes are a must to protect business data.

Security policies must also address concerns associated with use of personal devices. Authenticated access, encrypted data, plus provisions for remote data wipe-out are likely to make their use safer. Loss of business data may translate as a financial loss; however, getting business gadgets insured can minimise loss.