In business, your regulatory alignment is absolutely vital. If you’re breaking regulations or laws in how you go about your business processes, you can be liable to heavy fines and litigation that can cost your company dearly. In this article, and in light of new data protection regulations across the world, we’ll look at what businesses can do to improve their data protection. Read on to learn four key ways in which you can keep your data safe for the future.
Adequate Cybersecurity
One of the main pillars of your data protection strategy is your cybersecurity. If you have a strong network of cybersecurity software attached to your business computers, protecting data both on your network and in the cloud, you’ll be well-protected from breaches.
You’ll certainly already be operating with a cybersecurity patch in your business computers, but now is the time to seriously consider how you can improve on this facility to best protect your business. Contact your supplier, and get advice from IT professionals, to understand if you’re getting the best protection possible from the cybersecurity market.
Staff Training
Nearly half of all data breaches are initiated internally. This means that your staff are a serious weak point in your efforts to protect your data. If you’re looking to go about improving your network’s protection – and the protection of the data that it contains – you should make efforts to train your staff in good data hygiene and protection practices. It’s also worth assigning a chief data officer to your firm – a legal requirement in some geographies –to have a responsible employee monitor how data is used, processed, and transported within your firm.
Prevention Practices
In light of the regulations in the modern world – like the EU’s GDRP, which spans all businesses that operate within the EU – you need to be extra sure that your data is protected on all legs of its journey when being transferred.
In this age of increased remote working, assuming strong data loss prevention strategies will help you and your business avoid unpleasant breaches and leaks of data. Be aware that data loss prevention – or DLP – is something that you have to work hard at over time – it’s no quick fix. But following DLP guidelines can help you avoid hefty fines for data loss in the future.
Access Security
All data is essential to your business. Furthermore, some of the most valuable data will be stored for many months – and sometimes years – within your business. This means that anyone who can access your data internally could come to leak or lose it. The solution here is to only grant access to your data banks to those employees that you see as responsible and well-trained in data protection practices.
Make sure that the data banks themselves have access codes and authentication around them to prevent any and all employees from accessing your sensitive and valuable data.
Use these four methods to make sure your business is protecting its data in the modern era of tight data regulation across the world.
Interesting related article: “What is cybersecurity?“