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Over the past few years, it’s not just small businesses that have come under attack. It would seem that large companies are more armed and have sound protection systems, but this is not always the case. More and more often, newspapers and websites began to publish news about data breaches of large companies: Facebook, Orbitz, Quora, etc. What’s more, the National Cyber Security Alliance reports that more than 60% of businesses go out of business after such attacks.
Cyber attackers are constantly improving their hacking methods. Therefore, business application development and data security have become a priority for many companies. If you want to prevent hackers from accessing your data in advance, the simple solutions described below will help you. Most large companies have tested these protection methods and built a successful cybersecurity policy on their basis.
Know Where The Data Is And Where It Goes
To achieve adequate data protection, you need to know precisely where and what data is stored in the company. An excellent assistant is document management software, which automatically distributes the information you need and determines where it is located. You also need to control data flow and know their weak points to prevent leakage in advance.
If you suspect that sensitive information is being leaked, there are a few options you can attempt, but first, get rid of the drive used by getting a hard drive destruction service. You can also audit the official accounts and check who has access to which information. Controlling how data is managed is essential to protect everyone involved.
There are also corresponding tools for detecting the vulnerability of a document. For example, if the program detects confidential data that other people can use against you, the program may offer to delete this data or encrypt it. Therefore, to achieve transparency in the privacy policy, you must learn to use management software for documents and their transfer.
Use Encryption In All Directions
Encryption is the second most crucial solution for confidential information and documents secure in large companies. Hard disks, USBs, phones, databases must be encrypted before being transferred to the cloud or other devices: laptops, computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.
Let’s say you provide the best essay service. Most likely, your employees work remotely, and you cannot control their movement around the city. However, thanks to the encryption, any data that ends up outside the company will be safe. Even if an employee loses the laptop you gave him for work, the encryption ensures that the information will not be available to third parties.
Protect Your Data In The Cloud
The cloud has simplified the work of many companies since you can store information in one place, and there is no need to have hundreds of paper files. However, as data moves in the cloud, the security issue has sparked controversy among seasoned IT experts and information privacy circles.
Online cloud service providers claim that the servers are entirely safe and outperform many private companies that hire various businesses. Such claims are rather dubious because Snowden, a technical specialist, a former CIA officer, claims that the NSA has direct access to the central servers of the leading Internet companies – Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.
Therefore, you should also protect the data in the cloud on your own. There are many free tools for cryptographic information protection – PGP, RAR archives with a password, and encrypted file names. The final solution is the most acceptable option. Millions of users use libraries worldwide, so it will be quite challenging to distinguish your information from others, even with a password.
Train Employees on Data Privacy Policy
Human beings are the most dangerous factor in the chain of protecting customer and company data. A study by the Ponemon Institute confirms this – experts conducted a survey, during which they found that over 50% of employees, due to lack of knowledge or carelessness, are the cause of data breaches.
To avoid this problem, you need to inform employees about internal and external privacy policies. We also recommend that you give lessons on cybersecurity, compose guides on how to use the document management system, and get in touch with the most confidential files.
If you are the manager of a large company, you should also adhere to the principles of high-level access to company information. Your laziness makes you an easy target for cybercriminals. Also, get senior managers to comply with the same level of safety established for ordinary workers.
For large businesses, programmers have developed data loss prevention solutions. Using these tools, you can protect and restrict access to confidential information – even those outside the company files. You can set levels of access to specific files and control particular workers who have access to them. For example, ordinary employees or third parties cannot view some data, while managers can. So you will be able to determine who from the group of managers has leaked the information to the network or competitors.
Improve BYOD Policy
Have you ever heard about the BYOD policy? In short, this is a corporate policy that involves employees using their own devices when working with corporate resources. At first glance, this is very convenient, but it casts doubt on the privacy policy.
Why? All confidential information that appears on the personal devices of employees can move outside the company’s network. In this case, any security measures you use to protect your data are meaningless.
If you do not have enough devices for issuing to employees, you can use this policy, but with a bit of improvement. You can restrict the types of data that personal devices cannot transmit. For example, the client’s confidential information can be located on the manager’s laptop and can only be viewed when using this device. This will avoid malevolent document scanning.
You can also use programs that determine the level of security or trust in the device. In this case, employees will have to improve their devices based on your privacy policy. Special programs will notify you when employees try to send files to unknown people. In addition, if this policy is violated, the software will block the transmission of sensitive data, which simplifies the work of the document manager.
Control Files Coming From Outside
When creating a business, be prepared to cooperate with customers, advertisers, suppliers, and others. However, not all people can approach you with good intentions. Hackers can steal confidential information through email, spam, and harmful advertisements. At the same time, you will not even know when opening which files this could happen.
To avoid this problem, use tools that filter dangerous messages, files, and ads. You can also control which messages will be allowed and blocked. For example, programs can send messages to the blocklist when a specific keyword is present. This way, you can save yourself from the intrusion of hackers and reduce the time to read unwanted emails.
Use Next-Generation Firewalls
Most hackers steal big data instead of stealing a single client account password and confidential information – if an attack, then complete and profitable. To improve security, you can partition your networks with next-generation firewalls. A firewall is a system that allows you to divide a network into two or more parts and implement a set of rules that determine the conditions for the passage of information from one piece to another.
In addition to separating the network, a firewall is capable of performing the following functions:
- Blocking external attacks.
- Blocking information leakage.
- Application control.
- Zone defence support.
- Logging and warning.
As you can see, you will be well protected. Combined with the above data protection methods, your business will be at the lowest risk zone and shorten the data breach. In addition, by protecting clients from external threats, you build excellent relationships and build trust.
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