Last Updated on Mar 13, 2020 by James W
Although a recent survey suggested that breaches of business data is decreasing; the cost to those that are breached has doubled. They may now cost afflicted businesses thousands upon thousands of pounds. The worst of these are now costing an average of between £65,000 to £115,000 for small organisations and £600,000 to £1.15 million for large organisations. Further, there are many different ways that these data breaches can occur. The good news is that these may be avoidable, as you will see from the tips and advice provided given below: –
Office Data
This is the data that you keep in and around your office. It is important that you secure this data, not only at the end of the day but also during office hours. This is because very few companies are able to account for every person that is in and around their offices throughout the entire days. After all it there may be delivery and maintenance persons, temporary staff and visitors at any given time. With this in mind you should ensure that you do not leave sensitive information lying around and secure your cupboards, cabinets and drawers.
Electronic Data
Data that you store electronically on your computers, hard drives and laptops also needs to be kept secure. This may be done by ensuring that you keep up to date anti-virus software on all of your devices and that they are securely locked when they are not in use. You can easily achieve this by equipping each device with a unique user password, which should be changed regularly and according to the needs of each individual.
Waste Data
The best way of protecting your company against data breaches is not to keep any sensitive data at all. This may not be possible; however,so the next best strategy is to retain as little as possible. You may be able to do this by having a regular clear-out of unneeded data and disposing of it in a secure way. The securest way of destroying this is by shredding it. Due to the time consuming nature of this job and the importance of complying with data regulations, it may be advisable to employ the services of a secure shredding company to do this for you. If you do employ such a company, however, it is imperative that you choose one such as Data Shred who is well aware of the legal requirements that they need to comply with.
