Single Out the Largest Risk Factors
Let?s start at the beginning. You want to gather as much information as you can for your business plan and strategies, single out the highest risk factors that could affect your business the most if leaked. You should calculate what are the odds of a data breach in that specific category, and come up with a mitigation plan to combat any potential problems down the line.
This is a vital early-phase factor so it shouldn?t be pushed aside and left for another day. Remember, analyze the risk factor and perform regular system checks. Security threats can come from a multitude of places. Data should be gathered on the security requirements in these areas:
? Access to the servers, system, and controls
? Entry authentication
? The integrity of the data
? Audit trail
? System activity logs
? Authorization for transactions
Maintain a Tight Security Policy
One of the least expensive (and yet, still effective) ways of reducing risk chances are by forming a tight company security policy. Some noteworthy IT security policies should include:
? Password management and security
? Limited (if not completely disallowed) third-party entry into the servers
? Anti-spyware and anti-virus security
? Daily or weekly data backups
? Regular software updates
? Data confidentiality
? Careful internet usage on company devices
? Secure wireless networks and connections
? Researching legalities for online businesses and digital security
Keep in mind that you will need to train your staff in order for these policies to really be effective. It isn?t enough to just tell them to be careful. They will need to learn the policies and appropriate measures in order to adequately implement them. Regular reminders on policy updates are good for fully taking advantage of the tight policies, as well as being aware of the most updated laws on digital security.
Format Obsolete Devices
When you are updating your company devices by getting new and improved machines, the question falls: what to do with the old devices? Usually, the answer is to just throw them away and get rid of them, and this is right, but there is one step missing ? wiping off the information on the devices before getting rid of them.
Crucial information that can compromise you could still get in the wrong hands. It really isn?t all too difficult to get the necessary information back from a computer that has just had its files deleted or has been formatted. Not making sure the data is unreachable can seriously put your entire company at risk, so, in order to be safe, you need to physically destroy the hard drive or by using disc-wiping software.
Hire High-quality Staff
The more obvious point would be this, hiring qualified staff. Yes, you would do that anyway if you had the resources at your disposal, but when you don?t, it would be best to assign your best workers on security jobs. This is all the more evident in the fact that a survey has shown that around 53% of CIOs in Australia say that it will be more difficult to find qualified IT employees now than before the pandemic.
If your team is too busy with other projects, and you do not have enough qualified people left to handle it, it would be wise to use managed IT services so that you can have high-quality workers doing your job without pulling your full-time workers from other important projects.
Always Have a Backup in Place
Backing up your data is one of the best ways of reducing risk to your IT systems. If you store all of your important data on a separate remote device, you ensure that your business won?t be plagued by data corruption or (significant) data loss. Some businesses do weekly backups, but it would be best to do this daily in order to avoid possibly losing more than a day?s worth of work.
If you have serious data breach issues, you can even consider storing data on several remote devices. This way, even if the main backup server has a problem, you can still safely backup your files on a daily basis.
Consider Business Insurance
Hacks and data breaches will happen no matter what you do. The best system cannot stop this, it can only reduce its success rate by a significant margin. So, with this in mind, it could be worth your time and money to get business insurance as the IT sector is prone to these issues. This is why business insurance is an important part of risk management and the recovery process.
Be aware that you need to regularly review and update your insurance policy. The IT sector keeps growing and evolving rapidly, so some forms of business insurance will be less effective over time, or even rendered obsolete.
