Data is among your most important assets, providing insight to make better decisions and building stronger customer and partner relationships. However, it could also be one of your biggest liabilities should you not make the right steps to protect it.
Businesses can lose millions of dollars due to data breaches. They can also affect the brand’s value, degrade confidence and trigger sanctions from regulators. While data breaches are inevitable, there are things you can do to lessen the risk and safeguard your data from cybercriminals.
1. Authorize and authenticate users.
Data security requires a strong authentication and authorization process to ensure that only authorized persons have access to your information. This can be achieved by requiring two or more forms are used to access your data, like an account that the user has (passwords and tokens) or something is equipped with (electronics and other devices) or what they actually have (biometrics like fingerprints or face recognition).
2. Secure everything
Classified data is among the most sensitive information and disclosure without authorization could have the most devastating consequences for your business as well as the individuals affected. To protect classified information, it should always be secured and encrypted using an encryption code that is only accessible to authorized personnel. Your team should periodically reassess classifications and develop a policy to manage encryption keys in order to protect them from being compromised.
3. Reduce non-essential data access.
Most employees don’t need complete access to free software download the company’s data. This reduces the risk of a breach due to the fact that it reduces the number potential entry points for threats. It is recommended to limit users‘ access to the data they require to do their job.