3 Tips to Prevent Data Loss
Don’t lose sleep over how to prevent data loss. Review these best practices.
How to prevent data loss is a common fear for every business owner. As people rely more on their smart devices with a hunger for technology, the ability for individuals to exploit that technology grows worse each day. Not too long ago, we all saw Target, a major department store chain, get attacked by hackers that stole millions of consumer credit card numbers. A few years prior to that, we watched in horror as hundreds of thousands of debit card numbers were compromised at ATMs in New York City.
You may be surprised to learn that many of the data and technology breaches you hear about had nothing to do with high tech skills. Instead, many of these hacks had humble beginnings through something called: social engineering.
Social engineering is the art of manipulating situations and individuals to gain access to sensitive information, often through the use of technology, and small businesses are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. The reason for this is that small businesses often don’t have the systems and resources in place to ward these attacks to prevent data loss.
Here are 3 tips your company can start implementing today to prevent data loss, better protect your valuable business information and decrease common technology risks:
1.) Enact lock down procedures for when a phone is lost or stolen.
Nearly 30-billion-dollars’ worth of cellphones were reported lost in the United States. Perhaps you can blame it on adult attention disorder or just a case of the absent-minded but think about all the APPS downloaded with critical information. From a business standpoint, now consider company files, emails and customer contact information live on this device. The implications of data loss are far reaching. While many companies remember to place ironclad security on mobile devices, they forget to enact lock down procedures for when a phone is lost or stolen.
2.) Get Your Data off the Server in Your Closet
As the general public becomes more and more dependent on technology, the desire to use a work device for personal use can’t be ignored. Accessing personal information through a company issued computer can seem quite harmless. Now consider a common scenario: you have an employee that is in the market for a new home and takes a few minutes on their lunch break to search for homes in the area. Unbeknown to this employee, she accesses a malicious website disguised to look like a harmless local realtor site and before they can hit exit, her monitor locks up. How do you prevent compromises like these? Many companies have blocked known harmful site and IP addresses in an effort to minimize these situations. Holding a computer server “hostage” is a new found game with expensive end results for the business owner. Cloud Service Providers like IBIS Technology are changing the way companies do business through education and design of affordable cloud services and technology solutions.
3.) Have a Solid Backup Solution to Prevent Data Loss
It is impossible for any company to promise 100% hack-free solutions. However, the data stored on any device has the ability to be stored, backup and retrieved in the event of a natural disaster or personal attack by an outside source or even internal manipulation. Ask yourself: how often is my data backed up and is it stored safely and easy to retrieve? The advancements of Cloud Managed Services have given new options to safer data storage and accessibility. IBIS Technology has state of the art cloud hosted desktop solutions for most small business budgets.
Your data is the lifeline to your business. Protect it from competitors, disgruntled employees, natural elements and even the data invaders. If you like this article, you may also be interested in Best Practice BYOD Programs: What is BYOD?
IBIS Technology – Making Cloud IT Services simple and keeping your data safe.
