Simple and Quick Tips for Businesses to Ensure Data Protection

Document scanning services help organizations to digitize all records and store them safely. Any information a business stores should be properly protected. Sensitive records such as employee records, customer details, loyalty schemes, transactions etc need to be protected. This is to prevent data from being misused by third parties for fraud such as phishing scams and identity theft. In the digital age, the concept of data privacy is critical to all sensitive information. Since data privacy is a prevalent issue, many government organizations and corporations are spending a huge sum of money to help protect their data. Today, the threat of security breaches only continues to grow, especially as the abundance of mobile devices creates new entry points to exploit. Proper protection requires various layers of security and constant monitoring by security personnel.

How to protect your important data from any data breach? Here are a few tips.

• Use data protection tools: Expecting security personnel to stay ahead of imminent security threats may not be practical always. This is because the frequency of phishing attacks is very high and rigid safety measures are necessary to catch new threats. BizTech Magazine reports that automation tools can implement constant vigilance online by assessing the risk profiles of websites, identifying new phishing techniques early and alerting security teams to any vulnerability before a data breach occurs. These automation tools also provide surveillance that humans cannot match and it offers personnel a simple way to prioritize investigation and threat mitigation.
• Encrypt data: Advanced tools now enable encryption of emails and other information. One of the main reasons for data breach is non-encryption of data. Now there are various methods for encrypting data. SQL server is a very powerful tool that empowers users to do a lot more than just query a data base.
• Review your data protection practices: Proper classification of data is important for effective data protection. When new data arrives, it must be categorized according to its identity, its level of sensitivity and its storage location among other considerations. This process of managing data creates categories and sub segments that can be used to introduce relevant security measures. Most of the businesses have their data classified but the IT team should conduct regular audits to ensure that data is regularly and accurately categorized. This is extremely important when it comes to managing mobile security through data provisioning and permission. Permission is important for mobile security but if the data is not classified, then it is pointless.
• Implement GDPR rules: All business should consider new General Data Protection Regulation should. If you have customers in Europe then this new regulation will affect how you collect consumer data and what protection must be taken to minimize security breach. Failing to comply with this will lead to penalties from the EU. This regulation was put into practice from the beginning of 2018. So, make sure that you have already audited your security to ensure you are in compliance.
• Copy data management: Copy data management has gained popularity among business owners the past. It is a solution to owning multiple, unnecessary copies of data and paying to store them. A copy data management vendor helps to streamline data storage and saves money by making data management more efficient.
• Automate software update: To ensure that you are downloading the latest security updates from operating systems and other software enable automatic update. This will update the software to defend against any known risks.

From financial information and payment details to contact information of employees, all data should be protected. Similarly, data protection for mobiles is also important. This is because in this present digital world anybody can access any critical data using mobile devices. The following are some tips to prevent data breach through mobile access.

• Consciously check and configure app privacy settings: Majority of the privacy settings for users help determine how and what types of information are shared and stored. Least amount of sharing is always ideal. Google offers various mobile apps that you can download to your mobile phone. Each app allows adjusting the privacy settings so that you can share as much or as little as you want.
• Be careful with your privacy settings: When configuring a new device or operating system, the first and foremost thing is configuring privacy settings. This will prevent inadvertently sharing sensitive information as you set up your standard apps and services. iPhone and iPad has a number of privacy settings that allow users to limit how long data is stored, expiry features and so on.
• Use MyPermission.com to control app permission in one fell swoop: My Permission is a useful tool that allows you to check permissions settings across a multitude of apps, get reminders to clean your permission with mobile – friendly apps and get alerts when apps access your personal information so that you can remove it with a single click.
• Enable automatic lock on smartphone and tablet after a period of inactivity: The common reason for data breach through mobile phones is not enabling automatic lock in your phone when inactive. You can protect your data in case your device is lost or stolen by locking your device. This prevents unwanted access to your mobile device. Configure your settings to ensure that your device locks after a short period of time.
• Use anti- virus or anti-malware protection: Anti malware protection software is provided for most computers and it is also used for protecting mobile devices from the growing number of malware programs. Earlier, security options for mobile devices was limited but today there are many anti – virus and malware scanning security apps for Android and other operating systems.
• Enable Touch ID if you use an Apple device: If you own an iPhone5 or later versions, then you can make use of added security measure known as Touch ID. It is a technologically advanced fingerprint security tactic. It is a mathematical representation of a fingerprint that cannot be reverse engineered. It is stored in Secure Enclave within your phone’s chip.
• Set up content filters: Whenever you use mobile devices, check into security options such as content filters that can be activated either through your wireless provider or on the physical device. Content filters access to certain types of content will ensure that no one can unintentionally go to a website or download apps that contain malicious content.

Data is considered as an important corporate asset that must be safeguarded. Loss of information can lead to direct financial losses, loss of reputation and confidence among clients etc. Governments throughout the world have begun implementing new regulations on electronic communication and stored data. These regulations often define what information must be retained, for how long and under what conditions. Data that flows into a business organization may be in structured or unstructured format. With the help of data cleansing services data can be structured properly and organized. This makes the data protection process easier.