In order to keep data secure and malicious agents at bay, it is important to practise this five-steps guide that will secure your perimeter from being devastated. With new roles being attributed to employees and changes in leadership, data security is very much palpable. New security end-points including employee information, customer payment information or business moves could end-up being a pile of rubble if leaked or accessed by wrongdoers.

In order to enhance data security and prevent sensitive data from changing hands, the following steps need to be followed:

Create a Robust BYOD Policy:

The BYOD practise, though having ushered in a remote work culture has exposed many loopholes in data being compromised with employees using unsecured Wi-Fi to access company data. In the process, company stands exposed to malware or personal mobiles being infected nastily.

Operating Systems that have not been updated will also wreak havoc in your system with lack of encryption in mobiles giving way to loss of data integrity. Hence create a robust system whereby employees do not shirk using their mobiles to access business mails etc, but register the mobiles with the IT department and as a security measure, enable 2 factor authentication (2FA) on their mobiles which will reduce the hacker from getting invalid access to emails and work related accounts and later business networks. Employees should learn to use Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) to access company data rather than using unsecured Wi-Fi that is open to prying eyes.

Encrypt data for protection:

Data encryption can be affected by securing data confidentiality at rest and during transit. The growing adoption of cloud, big data and virtualization enables encryption software to take effect in order to prevent data loss. Encryption Software is a security program that secures the data confidentiality at transit and during rest. Each data packet or file is encrypted with a key and this key is shared with the receiver also thus necessitating knowledge of the key to read data contents in the data packets.

Password Protection:

Secure your programs and data residing in computer disks and drives with strong passwords and thus not become easy meat for unknown hackers and give in to malicious attacks. You could pick out strong passwords from password management application with some of the trusted managers being Zoho Vault and Dashline 4. In the case of mobiles, Mobile Device Management (MDM) Software will secure data when device is lost or stolen.

Prevent Data Breach in all devices:

Ensure that all devices, mobiles and laptops which access corporate data are adequately protected with decent security software program and antivirus from improper violations and data breaches.

Identity and Access Management (IAM):

By introducing identity and access management (IAM) you can be convinced that all data that company accesses is secure. Single Side On (SSO) technology helps in correct identity mapping and IAM parameter is useful because it does ascertain which individual is accessing which data.

For more information, visit www.dataresilience.com.au or drop us a note at [email protected]