Data is the lifeblood of any business, allowing companies to function efficiently and profitably. However, businesses must be able to balance the need for accessible and abundant data with the need to keep customer information secure and private. The latter is influenced by the ever-changing privacy regulations like Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA, as well as old-fashioned laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that protect financial information of shareholders and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for payment information of consumers.
The first step to ensuring data protection is to catalog and protect all your data. This involves identifying and classifying data according to its sensitivity level, and determining access levels. It is crucial to implement policies that safeguard data whether it is in transit or in rest. Using a solution to monitor and detect activities in the file and detect suspicious patterns can help you recognize suspicious activity, and swiftly identify and reduce vulnerabilities, such as out-of-date or incompatible software.
A complete plan for recovery and backup that includes physical storage media will be essential. Lastly, it’s important to implement effective security measures, from background checks on hiring candidates and regular training for existing employees to ending employees who don’t require access to critical systems. It’s also crucial to create a plan of recovery in the event of the occurrence of a natural catastrophe or a man-made one.
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