Why Your Business Needs Data Security

Why Your Business Needs Data Security

Cybercriminals use technology to commit illegal activities such stealing data, identity, and money, and often seek out vulnerable individuals or businesses to attack. The idea of safeguarding your business data may seem overwhelming but ignoring the holes in your security posture could cost dearly if a successful data breach is executed.

What Kind of Cyber Threats Is Your Business Prone to?

The cybersecurity landscape is fast-changing, stressful, and frightening. Some modern attacks include:

• Business Email Compromise (BEC)
• Malware and ransomware
• Crypto scams

There are so many ways a cybercriminal can infiltrate your network so it’s extremely important to implement multiple layers of cybersecurity protection.

How Do You Protect Your Business’s Sensitive Data?

Your business needs a proper information security plan to handle cybersecurity threats now and in the future. Creating a plan and revisiting it annually is recommended.

To start, here are some of the cybersecurity measures your business must do:

Install Firewalls:

Firewalls can prevent risky applications from accessing network and computer data, while at the same time, allowing approved applications unlimited access. They serve as a response gateway for all incoming data and traffic. Since businesses typically work with sensitive data, a business-grade firewall is a must-have.

Back up your data:

Data backup should be regularly scheduled to replicate copies of your data offsite and to the cloud. A reputable backup solution safeguards businesses from disasters, human error, and malicious activity to promote business continuity with uninterrupted access to data onsite, in transit, and in the cloud.

Use multi-factor authentication:

Multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to protect your employee’s data as it adds an additional method of authentication (typically a code generated on your mobile phone) to verify login credentials to user accounts.

Secure your passwords:

Ensure that you safeguard all your passwords and create complex, unique passwords that vary across accounts. A strong password typically combines hard to guess characters, letters, and numbers to make it as strong as possible. A password management solution is highly recommended to securely store your passwords.

Restrict access to sensitive data:

Less access translates to reduced data safety risks. You should make data available to only those that need it. To achieve this, regularly audit your access privileges. You can also revoke access when an employee leaves your business.

Provide cybersecurity awareness training:

Employees are the leading cause for stolen, lost, or leaked data. The best and most effective approach to sustainable data security is comprehensive user training.

Seek professional IT intervention:

Partner with an experienced Managed Service Provider to provide IT services or assist your existing IT department to evaluate your security risks and protect your business.

Protect Your Data with Sourcepass

The security practices recommended in the previous section will improve your security posture, but why are they necessary? The following are some factors to consider, including:

• Reputational Risk: Security infringements cost more than just money. If your business relationships depend on customer details and maintaining trust, you need to make data safety your top priority to protect your business’ reputation.
• Cost: The added cost of cybersecurity protection is a concern. However, the cost of recovering from a data breach or ransomware attack including downtime, data recovery, the potential of paying a ransom, and closing security holes after the fact could be much higher.
• Industry compliance: Many businesses are mandated to meet industry compliance requirements to continue doing business. Not meeting requirements could mean fines and penalties, up to and including failure to continue to do business within certain industries.

If you are interested in ramping up your cybersecurity posture and protecting sensitive data, Sourcepass has extensive experience and can help.

To find out more, reach out to Mike Lareau, Vice President of Solution Engineering at (877) 678-8080.