It seems just about every day in the news (like this week's Lenovo Computers Superfish Virus) we hear about another company losing all of its data, having their data compromised by hackers, or having a virus destroy company records. It is a very true threat to all San Diego businesses and one that you should be prepared for.
Here are a few simple tips that even you the Business Owner with little IT knowledge can do:
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- Data Backup – data is the lifeblood to your organization and the #1 way to ensure it is secure from loss is to back it up. There are many ways this can be done but even at the simplest cheapest level you can do it. How? If nothing else Copy/Paste all your folders and files over to a thumb drive or external drive weekly and take it home.
- Test Data Recovery Weekly – so you managed to backup that data but did the backup actually work? Do you want to wait till the day of a real data loss to know if it can be recovered? Or course not!! At minimum each week do a test restore of your data and be sure you can open a few of the files as a quick test.
- Install a Business Class Firewall Device – what is a firewall? It is similar to that little dusty black or blue box that says Linksys, Cisco, or D-LINK you have at home by your Internet router. However there is an entirely different level of these devices for business use purposes and they are the #1 defense to protect your office network against hackers, viruses, and other malicious attacks. Go look in your IT Closet at your office for a SonicWall, WatchGuard, Sophos, or Fortinet branded device to see if you have a business class firewall. Or simply ask your IT Support
- Delete Former Employees’ Accounts – we see former employee accounts still active on the email systems and on the computer networks with just about every single new client we work with. This is a huge risk to your data! Your former Sales Director from 2 years ago who now works for your competitor still has an active account on your network. Not good huh? Be sure to perform regular monthly audits with your IT Consultant to keep your active accounts current.
- Password Protect Folders – HR, Company Financials, Health Information, and other folders containing sensitive employee and company information should be password protected. Security through Obscurity doesn’t count!! Whenever we onboard a new client this is one of the first audit processes we take them through and about 75% of the time they find out that anyone in their company could have easily accessed those sensitive folders. This is an extremely EASY fix. Review these folder permissions with your IT Department regularly as well.
See Also - Tips Why Data Backup and Disaster Recovery are Critical to Your Business
By taking these 5 Quick Steps to Ensure Your Company Data is Secure you are on your way to sleeping better at night knowing you are heading in the right direction. These steps above are just the minimums and even these we see most companies not meeting. Be sure to meet with your IT Support in San Diego to make sure you are exceeding these minimums if your company data is valuable to your organization.
