There’s a reason that enterprises across all major industries are investing heavily in information technology and cybersecurity. Cyberthreats are on the rise and enterprises need to secure their important data.
Is the data in your organization completely secure? Employ these key strategies to ensure the security of your valuable data.
What is Data Security – and Why Is It Important?
Data security is the process of protecting sensitive digital data from unauthorized access and attack. It can involve a variety of techniques and technologies, including data encryption, access control, and anti-malware tools.
Data security is important because threats to your data are significant and increasing. Consider these statistics:
- The percent of organizations experiencing at least one cyberattack increased from 80.7% in 2020 to 86.2% in 2021
- Every minute of every day, enterprises lose $2,900,000 to cybercrime
- The number of ransomware attacks nearly doubled in the first half of 2021
For these reasons alone, securing your company’s data is of utmost importance. Can your company afford to be hit by a data breach, ransomware, or other cyberattack?
How to Secure Data in Your Organization
When you want to secure your organization’s data, follow these key strategies.
Keep All Devices and Systems Updated
As devices, systems, and software age they become more vulnerable to various types of exploits and attacks. It’s imperative that they receive the latest patches and updates to provide maximum protection against malware and other cyberthreats. Your IT staff should update all hardware, software, and systems on a regular basis and when security updates are issued. (This is equally important for personal devices employees use when they’re at home or on the road.)
Avoid Default Settings
Experienced IT staff know to never retain the default settings on any device or system. One of the first things users should do when receiving a new device or installing new software is to change default usernames, passwords, and remote access settings. There’s no reason to make things that easy for bad actors who want to break into your system.
Use Anti-Malware Tools
This may seem like a no-brainer because it is. Make sure your IT staff employs all available anti-malware tools, both off-the-shelf and custom. That means anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities, anti-phishing tools, firewalls, and the like. These tools also need to be updated on a regular basis to include protection against developing malware threats.
Enforce Access Controls
It’s important to limit access to your firm’s most sensitive data. Not everyone needs access to everything. Enforce access controls to make sure that only those employees who need to use specific data get access to that data. No none, save for IT staff, should have universal access to all your company’s data. One good approach that of least privilege access, which grants users access only to those files that essential to performing their assigned duties.
Employ Strong Encryption
What happens to your data in the event of a breach? If your data is encrypted, maybe nothing. Encryption scrambles your data so that it can only be read by users with the proper decryption key. An unauthorized user accessing encrypted data will only see gibberish, which is why more and more enterprises are employing strong encryption for all their sensitive data.
It’s not only data that can and should be encrypted. You can encrypt all the communications within your organization to ensure that malicious actors can’t intercept or eavesdrop on sensitive communications. End-to-end encryption ensures that all communications – text, voice, and video – are fully encrypted, even in transit. Anyone listening in won’t see or hear anything usable.
Train Your Employees
Finally, one of the most important things you can do to secure the data in your organization is to provide proper employee training. Everyone in your organization needs to adopt a security mindset and be aware of the dangers that exist. Since more ransomware and other cyberattacks start with phishing and other social engineering techniques, employees especially need to be trained to recognize and avoid potential phishing schemes. Training is even more important for remote workers who may be communicating and transferring files via unsecure public connections. The better you train your employees, the less risk your company will incur.