Security is at the forefront of every business owners mind. Keeping your physical location safe for patrons is difficult but, the Internet poses an unseen internal threat. How can you make sure your company information stays safe?
“2013 Data breaches exposed over 822 million records nearly doubling the previous record high…” reports the Digital Journal. The 2013 exposures reached an all-time high over previous years. With over 2,164 incidents of breaches, over 822 million records were appropriated by attackers last year and almost half of those were right here in the U.S.
Security breaches are a very real threat. It seems like second nature to hear about a security breach on the morning news at some large corporation. We even have a few friends who were tied up in the data theft issues at Target last winter. In this incident, 110 million records from Target shoppers were exposed all because their HVAC company didn’t use a good antivirus program. Adobe topped the Target debacle with over 152 million records swiped last year.
Giant companies are not the only ones in the spotlight. Regardless of the size of your organization or type of clients you serve, keeping your company data safe is essential to keep your company in business. Technology can give you the upper hand over your competition, but it can also mean the end of your operations when it’s not properly managed.
What should I be managing? Ask yourself, “What do we have to protect? What would impact our company the most?” Look at things like the types of information you collect from your clients. Do you store payment information or personal data? Does your business have an internal network, wireless network, remote access, or Internet based programs? Do you have work devices that leave the office like smartphones or laptops? Consider these five security concerns to explore to keep your company safe.
- Educate your employees. Train your employees to recognize the risks associated with infections, online fraud, scams, and social engineering. Make sure personal devices used at the office are properly maintained and free from infection before they are allowed on the company network. Even charging a smartphone or using a flash drive with a virus on it can let hackers right in your back door.
- Keep your applications, software, and hardware licenses/warranties updated. All your systems would be updated in a timely fashion with continual monitoring, patches and upgrades as they become available. Falling behind on this standard IT maintenance can mean a rift of exposure in your organization.
- Lock down your network. If you have a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) at your location for your clients and guests to use, separate it completely from your company operations. Lock down your organization so the traffic from your public network cannot travel into your internal systems.
- Encrypt your sensitive data. Your clients expect you to keep their information safe. They trust in your business for products or services as well as privacy and security.
- Backup and secure your internal systems. Use a strong authentication method to keep your data safe from intrusions and malicious attacks. We recommend a robust filtering system, a firewall, anti-virus protection for every computer and server as well as 24/7/365 monitoring and offsite data backup. This may seem like a lot, but think of the consequences if your data is lost, stolen, or corrupted. Could your business survive?
OH NO! Are you worried? If you have questions racing in your head after reading this article, give us a call. We offer a FREE Network & Security Audit to help you identify and address the risks your business is facing.