Key Steps to Business Data Security

As the number of data breaches continues to rise around the world, business data security has become a priority, no matter the size of the enterprise.

Falling victim to such an attack can have several repercussions, including loss of business and a severely damaged reputation.

Business data security must not be seen as a cost, but rather an investment into the long-term sustainability of the business.

Steps you can implement for your business, today.

Although both a necessary and very important process within an organisation, implementing business data security doesn’t need to be complicated. These steps aim to facilitate your business’ development into a high-security data fortress.

1. Outline what needs protection

The first step in protecting your information is to identify what data needs protection. Without any doubt, data which relates to clients and employees, as well as trade details and projects, all need protection. These files need to be stored within protected and well-organised systems, so the first step might require you to collect this data, rather than having it spread out uncontrollably.

2. Educate your employees

An alarming number of data breaches occur when employees click on a malicious email link or open an infected attachment. This is the reason why you should ensure that your employees are made aware of potential threats and ways to protect themselves and the business. If you are unsure how to educate your team, GO’s team of security professionals can offer advice and guidance in this regard.

3. Create data backups

To ensure continuity of service even if you have suffered an attack, creating multiple backups is essential. Effective business data security requires both physical and virtual backups, stored in different locations.

This step might appear expensive to small businesses, since they would need to invest in multiple servers, renting of locations, setting up security and employing a round-the-clock team to manage these backups. In fact, in order to avoid all this hassle and expense, what most businesses in Malta and abroad opt to do is to rely on a managed, cloud backup solution.

4. Generate awareness

Apart from educating your employees, you need to keep them aware of new threats and ways to stay secure. Even though your business might have not yet been attacked, the probability is that it will be sometime in the future.

Threats and attacks are constantly developing, so GO’s security team provides their clients with easy-to-understand information about these new threats and ways to prevent them. Without these updates, ensuring business data security would be all but impossible.

5. Create user restrictions

Imagine your data were as valuable as gold, would you be comfortable granting indiscriminate access to it to all your employees? Setting user restrictions allows better management and control of your data, lowering the risk of unauthorised infiltration by reducing the number of potential channels to that particular file or folder.

6. Secure your broader operations

Business data security is not limited to your company’s office or headquarters. With an increasing number of employees opting for remote working, and the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, the number of potential vulnerabilities to your data is growing. If a device, no matter its main function, is connected to your server, it provides a potential entryway to a skilled hacker.

Protecting your data from infiltration through these external devices requires extensive security investment. GO Business offers a cost-effective solution to manage your extended IT infrastructure, which can scale at a moment’s notice.

Your solutions partner

Managing your business data security is not a simple process, as threats are only increasing and getting more dangerous. The investment of human and financial resources required to be truly protected can exceed what a small or medium business can easily afford.

GO Business offers tailor-made IT solutions which cater to each business’ particular and general needs. All of our services, including networking, IT infrastructure, and managed services can be designed to suit your business’ requirements.