According to IT Governance, approximately 2 billion files were compromised by cybercriminals in January 2019 alone! A majority of the companies that lost their data were characterized by poor data protection systems.

As such, you should always develop reliable strategies to safeguard your sensitive data. If you fail to act, you can be certain that cybercriminals will easily find a way to compromise your data, which will be detrimental to your business.

While we insist on the need to have water-tight security systems, we appreciate that the process can be overwhelming. You require to invest time and resources into ensuring that you keep cybercriminals at bay.

If you feel frustrated by the processes, then you should read this article to the end as we highlight various techniques that you can use to increase your data security without breaking your bank significantly.

Why Data Protection Is Crucial For Your Business?

The Internet of Things (IoT) has greatly revolutionized business operations globally. Most organizations have established highly convenient systems to collect, store, and transfer data. However, cybercriminals are taking advantage of these systems to compromise private information that you collect from your clients. This makes it important to develop astute measures to ensure that only authorized individuals can access your data.

Data loss can be expensive for your organization. It’ll lead to financial loss as the cybercriminals seek to get monetary benefits to release your data. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercriminal activities will cost organizations approximately $6 trillion globally. The loss to the global business community is mind-boggling, and any individual business entity should work towards reducing cybercriminal activities.

Also, reports of data compromise in your organization will lead to a loss of customer confidence, which will result in huge losses and possible business collapse. When this happens, competitors will take advantage of the situation and attract all your customers to their businesses, making it relatively difficult to win their trust back.

Finally, developing a stringent data security system will ease your compliance processes. Various regulatory bodies require that you have a verifiable and continuous data protection system. For example, the GDPR policy was formulated to regulate the collection, storage, and sharing of data. If you want to comply with GDPR requirements, you must have a strong data sharing policy to ensure that you do not compromise the confidentiality and privacy of the data owners. Other regulatory bodies that demand a reliable data protection system include HIPAA, ISO, and PCI DSS.

How You Can Protect Your Data?

Whenever you’re using your electronic devices to access your data, you expose it to a chance of compromise. Here are some proven techniques that will significantly increase your data security:

Develop an Efficient Risk Management System

If you want to protect your client’s data from bad actors, you should have the potential to detect the threats early enough. You will only achieve this if you have an elaborate risk management system that can detect security loopholes in your organization. One of the most reliable techniques is the use of automated tools to scan through your systems and make regular reports on your organization’s vulnerability. Immediately after the detection, you’re obliged to develop protection mechanisms that will block all malicious individuals from accessing and compromising your data.

Regularly Train Your Employees

A report by TechRepublic indicates that approximately 48% of all data losses in organizations can be attributed to negligence by employees. As such, you should aggressively train your workers on how to handle your sensitive data to protect it from leakage. The training should highlight their cybersecurity roles while detailing the consequences of data leakage

Only Use Messaging Apps with End-to-End Encryption

Hackers can capitalize on unsecured messaging apps to get confidential details about their clients. To avoid this, you should always ensure that you encrypt your data, including emails and private chats. Different apps have an encryption option to safeguard the data of their users. If you’re not comfortable with the app’s offer, you can always use other premium tools that will ensure that you enjoy leakage-proof conversations in your organization.

Always Use Strong Passwords and Change Them Regularly

Hackers have mastered the art of acquiring your logins to access your information. As such, you must develop strong passwords to keep your data safe. It must contain characters, alphabets, and numbers. The longer it is, the harder it is for the hackers to guess. Also, you should regularly change it to further make it difficult for hackers.

Invest in Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus Software

Your data is at a heightened risk of compromise by malware and viruses. As such, you should always have updated software to protect it.

Never Store Your Passwords in Your Devices

While you may want the convenience that comes with a fast login, you’ll be exposing your data to risk if you store your passwords on your devices. You should log in every time you want to access your data systems. That way, you can be certain that no unauthorized person can access it whatsoever. Additionally, you should avoid accessing your information using public devices or shared WIFI. This can allow cybercriminals to intercept your activities and harvest private data for criminal use.

Always Back Up Your Files

This is one of the most crucial steps in protecting your data from loss. You can use cloud-based backup solutions or any other method that will help you retrieve your data after a loss. The technique will protect you from malicious individuals who compromise your data and blackmail you to send money to them for data recovery. When backing up, ensure that you use a service provider that’s compliant with data protection policies such as GDPR. This guarantees the safety of your data during storage.

Bottom Line

While technology advancement has simplified your business operations, it can lead to incredible losses if not well-managed. Numerous malicious individuals are determined to access your systems and compromise your data.

As a result, organizations are spending millions to recover their data. Instead of these losses, you should activate the measures we’ve listed in this article and safeguard your data entirely. Always ensure that your password is strong and limit access to only authorized individuals in your organization.