Effective data security is a must-have for any organization. Whether it is trade secrets, customer information or your upcoming marketing plans, your data is important to your business. Plus, there can be measurable harm to others if you lose information about them. In a work-from-home environment, keeping data secure is more challenging than ever. Fortunately, the following seven tips can help.
Provide resources that can teach them about common cybersecurity risks and ways to stay safe. It is also valuable to make your policies as easy to understand as possible. Your team members should be able to easily remember and apply the content of each training.
From a security standpoint, you should ideally only have company-owned devices connecting to your systems. Your IT team can configure these devices and establish procedures for updates, installing new software and more.
Of course, bring-your-own-device policies are growing in popularity with both employers and employees (who want a more personalized experience). If your team decides to do this, make sure you have clear policies about how devices will be used and protected.
No matter what devices your team is using, make sure they are kept up to date and protected with appropriate security software. Updates are especially important because software vendors, especially those producing operating systems, are committed to eliminating vulnerabilities. However, those protections won’t be in place unless devices are updated. Furthermore, most modern operating systems have built-in malware protection.
You should strongly consider implementing a virtual private network. This will give your team members a way to connect to your company-owned systems including both on-premises hardware and cloud-based infrastructure.
Using a VPN also protects your systems by encrypting and separating data flowing between your users’ devices and your servers. Since the data stays within the VPN’s encrypted “tunnel,” it is harder to access from the internet at large.
Handling permissions and who has access to what is one of the most important ways you can keep your data secure. You can think of this as compartmentalization. If everyone on your team has access to all your data and systems from any device, any minor security breach could become a major catastrophe. Conversely, if you have good permissions management, you can contain any breaches more effectively.
Plus, permissions management often goes hand in hand with identity authentication. Better authentication means that it is harder to access your data while pretending to be someone else.
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As mentioned, people tend to be the weakest point of any computer system’s security. Although hackers have methods for directly attacking the network, databases and other systems, it is often the users and their credentials that are the easiest to defeat. Education can go a long way, but people sometimes need policies requiring them to create strong passwords and use tools such as multifactor authentication.
Multifactor authentication is especially important. There are three main security “factors” or ways to establish someone’s identity: something you know, something you are and something you have. The first factor is login credentials, PINs and other such pieces of secret information. The second factor is biometrics and location. The final factor is tools such as bank cards and authenticator apps. Using two or three factors greatly increases security.
A lot of small businesses tend to use consumer security tools in a haphazard security plan. Invest in creating a complete cybersecurity strategy that uses business-oriented solutions. The good news is that Microsoft and other such vendors can provide you with a lot of what you need out of the box.
Keeping your business data secure is essential to your company’s future. You can implement many of the above tips and enhance your security by migrating to the Microsoft Cloud. Cloudficient offers migration solutions that make it easy to transition all your data efficiently and securely from your legacy systems. Learn more today.
With unmatched next generation migration technology, Cloudficient is revolutionizing the way businesses retire legacy systems and transform their organization into the cloud. Our business constantly remains focused on client needs and creating product offerings that match them. We provide affordable services that are scalable, fast and seamless.
If you would like to learn more about how to bring Cloudficiency to your migration project, visit our website, or contact us.