Cybercriminals have evolved from low-key computer hacks to advanced company-wide cybersecurity attacks, compromising business data. Any information captured, stored, and processed by a business is considered business data. This digital asset supports day-to-day business operations and decision-making.
So, it’s crucial to protect business data through continuous monitoring and implementing other security practices, which will be discussed below.Â
- Business Data Encryption
Business data encryption is crucial to avoid unauthorized people from seeing the actual data, like bank details and passwords, being sent, processed, or stored in a server or online. So, utilizing business data encryption is a must.Â
For instance, managed file transfer involves building an encrypted tunnel to protect business data, including user IDs and passwords flowing over a connection, allowing your trading partners to exchange files with your organization in a secure manner. Learn more about managed file transfer using SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) and Secure Copy (SCP) protocols at https://www.goanywhere.com/managed-file-transfer/file-server/sftp-server.
- Disaster Recovery Planning
A system that suffers periods of downtime can quickly suffer a loss of earnings. For this reason, it’ imperative to have a good disaster recovery plan for a business to get back on track as quickly as possible.
Large companies, like banks, usually have shadow sites to take over business operations within minutes if a problem arises from the core operation. While smaller companies won’t find ‘recovery’ provision practical to implement, they should still have a disaster recovery plan to implement if a major business data security problem occurs.
It’s crucial to think about who will be managing a disaster and initiating the process of getting the business operations back on track. For instance, larger businesses usually hire their in-house IT team for a full-time data security job. Smaller companies, on the other hand, can outsource a professional to manage the recovery operation.Â
- Choose A Reliable Data Backup Solution
An important aspect of data recovery is data backup. Businesses should have the capability to perform backups before and after changes and upgrades. Production files should be saved daily or regularly. On the other hand, operating system and program files must be saved at least on a monthly basis.Â
Typically, a 3-2-1 business data backup strategy is advisable. It involves keeping three copies of a file, in which one copy should be stored off-site. For instance, the original working copy and copies are stored on separate backup drives. Another example is one copy is stored on a local backup drive and the other copy in the cloud.
There are different data backup solutions businesses practice nowadays, such as the following:
- Cloud Technology: With cloud technology, there’s an automatic off-site copy, making saving business data a lot easier and faster. For peace of mind, it’s still worth considering saving the most crucial files to an external hard drive or any local medium.
- Archive-as-a-service Solutions: It simplifies archive storage management, capable of handling a high volume of data that can be read but not overwritten or changed.
- Keeping Abreast With The Latest Security Threats: Businesses are responsible for protecting tons of personal and financial consumer data. Regardless of the size and niche, any business is vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks. So, it’s important to be always stay updated with the latest security threats.
Employees should undergo regular data security assessment and training because they’re the frontliners of businesses. For example, customer service representatives handle sensitive customer information on the phone and via email. So, they must be aware of the important things they need to do and remember when facing possible data security breaches. All these rules are valid for individuals that use Mozilla Thunderbird to store their messages, contacts, passwords, and settings. You should know that if you lose your data there, there are still ways to retrieve deleted messages in Thunderbird.
The top data security threats that pose risks to business data include phishing, ransomware, botnet, and rootkit. Here’s how they work:
- Phishing: It’s a form of cybercrime, involving contacting targets by email, text message, or telephone, pretending as legitimate institutions, luring victims into providing sensitive data like financial information, personally identifiable information, and sensitive business data.Â
- Ransomware: In ransomware, the cybercriminal encrypt threatens the victim to publish the data or block data access unless a ransom is paid.
- Botnet Attacks: Cybercriminals use a collection of internet-connected devices or botnets to initiate botnet attacks, such as data theft, unauthorized access, and credentials leaks.Â
- Rootkit: A rootkit, a malicious software, enables an unauthorized user to access a computer and software program. It contains malicious tools like password stealers, keyloggers, antivirus stealers, and banking credential stealers.
Conclusion
Implementing the above-mentioned security practices can help in safeguarding business data against different types of data security threats and vulnerabilities. Businesses shouldn’t underestimate what cybercriminals can do. With the right security system in place and hiring the right IT people to protect your business data, proper planning and implementation will be carried out to protect your business data at all costs.
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