Data is the lifeblood of any business, allowing businesses to function effectively and profitably. Companies must balance the need to collect a lot of data with the requirement to protect and keep private customer data. The GDPR in Europe and California’s CCPA are driving this point as well as long-standing laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and Securities and Exchange Commission rules that safeguard financial information of shareholders and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
To ensure the security of your data the first step is to organize all your data and protect it. This means identifying, separating and determining the access levels of your data based on its sensitiveness. It is important to implement guidelines to protect data whether it is in transit or at rest. Using a tool that can detect and monitor data activity and detect suspicious patterns can help you identify suspicious activity and quickly identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, including outdated software and configurations.
A complete plan for recovery and backup that includes physical storage media is vital. Last but not least it is crucial to implement meaningful measures of security, ranging from background checks for potential hires to regular training for existing employees, as well as terminating employees who no longer require access to vital systems. It’s also important to create an emergency plan for recovery in the event of a natural disaster or a man-made one.
