Protect Your Business Assets In 3 Simple Steps

The issue of cybersecurity has become a priority for businesses in the twenty first century. It doesn’t take much for a piece of spyware or a virus to infect your servers leaving you and your sensitive company data compromised. You need to spend some time protecting your assets. You need to ensure that you have processes in place that every member of staff has signed up to and understands inside out. While your business vision will be more concerned with how to keep the cash flow buoyant for your startup, you mustn’t neglect the importance of cybersecurity. Take a look at how you can keep your business safe in three simple steps.

Get Everyone On Board

Cybersecurity measures cannot be silent edicts that you make to yourself. You must make sure that you train up your workforce so that they understand how to limit the threat of hackers and cybercriminals. Firstly, carry out refresher training sessions annually. Ensure that you reinforce the most basic rules of being secure online. Inform your team that they must change their passwords every three months and that they need to be at least twelve characters long. Gone are the days of using your first pet’s name or your mother’s maiden name. Passwords need to be more random and depersonalised.

Ensure that you only ever let data be seen by those who need to see it. Limit the access of your staff. This isn’t to show mistrust but to keep your assets as safe as possible. Fewer eyes on the files mean that there is less chance for something to go awry.

The Cloud

The mythical cloud has emerged giving business owners a more secure way of storing sensitive and confidential data. While not unhackable by any means, online storage is still much more secure than a hard drive on your computer, and there is less chance of files becoming corrupted or lost. Many people view the cloud market as google drive vs. dropbox for digital asset management as both use encryption effectively and are widely utilised globally. While many old school entrepreneurs still struggle with the concept of surrendering data to an external platform, this is the most appropriate choice to keep files as secure as possible.

Keep Files Where You Can See Them

While allowing flexible working shows that you are a forward thinking and fair boss, this doesn’t mean that you should be allowing access to your most sensitive files off-site. It only takes one individual to open a dodgy email attachment for a piece of ransomware to infect their laptop. Encrypt, backup and simply don’t allow specific files to be opened anywhere other than the workplace. A regular backup is crucial if you were to be compromised to enable your business to keep running in as healthy a way as possible.

While it can be daunting to set up a system to protect your assets, you must allocate appropriate resources, time and effort to ensure that your data is safe and secure.

For more information take a look at this Spyware Guide.