For every business, whether a new or an already existing one, data security issues should be an important concern to the owner.
Looking at a business volume of data, there is a need to establish tight security measures to prevent a breach that would translate into severe damage to a business entity in its early growth stages.
The following are some of the key measures geared towards the data security of your business.
1. Establishment of the data security plan
It is not possible to keep a record of where crucial business data is stored. Therefore, a company should come up with guidelines mainly on file sharing. The data security plan should be able to address elements such as:
- The particular sensitive information to be used
- How sensitive information in the data rooms will be used?
- The kind of personnel that will be assigned with the role of this sensitive information
- The mode in which the sensitive information will be accessed, stored and destroyed in a manner that brings about its security.
- The officer in charge of the sensitive information in case of a breach.
2. Security awareness training
Most data breaches are of the social engineering and human error form. Training the business team would be a crucial thing to do to get rid of the human error factor.
This involves first assembling the security awareness team and then assigning roles to each member of the team regarding the protection of sensitive data. Creating this kind of awareness helps.
- The protection of vital information in the virtual data rooms
- Enables employees to handle vital information in a more secure manner
- Familiarises them with the risks involved in the mishandling of vital information
- Knowing the risks and the penalties levied, the employees can avoid future occurrences of breaching.
3. The use of cloud storage
This embraces data storage in logical pools and data rooms, physical storage pans, and a hosting company manages the physical environment.
Cloud storage services are only accessible using a web service API (Application Programming Interface). The most preferred cloud storage mode would be data-centric security, which guarantees security measures being embedded in the data itself.
In the case of a breach, access to this data is revoked immediately. Data and privacy practices should always start from top to down. Before choosing this as a preferred method of data storage, one should explore several questions such as;
- What to consider data
- How to manage it
- How to access it
- What to consider a breach
- What to do if a breach occurs
Having these questions in mind will help you choose a mode of storage that caters to your data all the time.
4. The use of two-factor authentication
It is known that the use of more than one-factor authentication can primarily reduce the many cases of data breaching by requiring at least two methods to verify the user’s identity.
These factors can be a username and password, accompanied by a smartphone device for verification. For a startup, it is necessary to find out how data is handled and stored in the data rooms.
When looking for a cloud vendor, startups should be keen to look out for those vendors that will provide good encryption and data fragment service with clearly stated policies on handling sensitive data on platforms such as Dedicated GPU Server Hosting and Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, etc. Two-factor verification protects against acts of
- Phishing
- Social engineering
- Password brute force
As well as securing logins against hackers. As far as we talk about data protection for startups, encryption is also a key factor to consider.
In conclusion, a startup must always come to terms with the fact that it is and will always be under attack by cybercriminals such as hackers until it has fully established. This is because most of these small companies hardly pay attention to the many risks they are vulnerable to.
This also translates to their budget allocation on security matters. Therefore, such a company should identify its critical assets and use the above cost-effective ways to safeguard such assets against cybercriminals. This also helps the company to stand out as most customers would prefer to trade with them.