Data is vital to any business. It helps it perform efficiently and profitably. Businesses must balance the requirement to have a lot of data with the requirement to secure and protect customer data. The GDPR in Europe and California’s CCPA are driving this point as well as long-standing laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and Securities and Exchange Commission rules that safeguard financial information of shareholders and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
To protect your data first, you need to categorize all your data and secure it. This involves identifying and classifying data according to its sensitivity level and determining access levels. It is essential to establish policies to safeguard data whether it is in transit or in its rest. Using a software solution to detect and monitor file activities and identify anomalous patterns will help you spot suspicious activity quickly and identify and eliminate vulnerabilities that could be a result of outdated or incompatible software.
Then, a comprehensive backup and recovery strategy that incorporates physical storage media is vital. And lastly it is essential to implement effective measures of security, ranging from background checks for new hires to periodic training sessions for existing employees, to removing employees who no longer require access to critical systems. It’s also essential to develop an emergency plan for recovery in case of the occurrence of a natural catastrophe or a man-made one.
