Protecting the data of your company is important for many reasons. Maybe you have proprietary information that would undermine the ability of your company to retain control of its market were it leaked. You may store sensitive information about your clients that needs to be protected. It can have ramifications for the functionality of your company and could mean legal problems if that data is compromised.
1. Control Access Controls
This is a problem that puts the responsibility for most security failures in the hands of the person using the technology, rather than the technology is at fault.
Do you have your system set up so that anyone who wants to can access any part of the system, or do you have it set so that only those who need to use certain tools get to use them?
If not, you need to do this. Having people who don’t know what they are doing in a position to weaken the system of your system is your Achilles’ heel.
2. Monitor Employees
Are your employees making mistakes? You may have a certain number of staff members that know what they are doing when they are using the computer, and you may have some that can do what you tell them, and then you may have others who are in total confusion about what they are doing or have done on the computer.
Even if it is not the case that the problems are being caused by those that don’t know what they are doing, you may have an issue with people who have got into bad habits with their own devices and carry that over to your work machines. You may need some help from someone in IT services to see what is happening with your system.
3. Apply Unique Passwords
How often do you find yourself confronted with another website asking for a new password that meets a certain set of requirements, and you just fall back on the easy to remember default password that you have used for all your apps and all of your social media accounts, and even your email accounts?
All it takes then is a single mistake in one place and you have laid all your data open to anyone that wants to exploit it. Using a trusted password manager that suggests strong passwords and saves them can make the whole workplace data safer.
4. Educate People
It is true that this is going to take you some time, and with some of your employees may take longer than others, but it is worth it. You may have people that are great at their jobs but are generally unable to think with electronic security.
Sometimes it will just be that they haven’t stopped to think about it and just needed it to be pointed out. Sometimes it will be that they got some wrong idea from someone else. Iron these issues out and it is going to be much simpler for you.
Some of the measures to make your company’s data safer are easy to implement and are fairly low cost. Other measures that are more involved, and may cost you a little more to put in place are going to have such a beneficial effect that they are going to be worth the money.
[Image via: Google Images]
