These are the options for how to safeguard data:
- Password protection
- Data encryption
- Maintain firewalls
When you think about it, the most valuable thing on your computer or network is the data you create. After all, that data is the reason for having the computer and network in the first place—and it’s the bits and bytes that make up that data that are your first priority when putting protective strategies in place. Operating systems and applications can always be reinstalled, but user-created data is unique and if lost, may be irreplaceable.
Some data is also confidential; not only do you not want to lose it, you don’t want others to even view it without authorisation. Exposure of your social security number, credit card, and bank account information could subject you to identity theft.
The surest way to guarantee that your company information is at your fingertips is to backup on a regular basis with an automated backup system.
When you’re switching over to a cloud backup system, it’s also important to realise that sending the information up to the cloud can take weeks when there is a lot of information to replicate, so you’ll need another form of backup in the meantime.
Onsite backups through a network-attached storage feature copy your information on to a hard drive. In some instances tape drives are also used—the combination of which provides ready access to a backup at all times.
Password-protect documents
Many productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office applications and Adobe Acrobat, will allow you to set passwords on individual documents. To open the document, you must enter the password; giving viable users more control over data management.
Use disk encryption
There are many third-party products available that will allow you to encrypt an entire disk. Whole disk encryption locks down the entire contents of a disk drive/partition and is transparent to the user. Data is automatically encrypted when it’s written to the hard disk and automatically decrypted before being loaded into memory. Some of these programs can create invisible containers inside a partition that act like a hidden disk within a disk. Other users see only the data in the “outer” disk.
Maintain firewalls
Intrusion prevention provided by firewalls blocks your data from the outside world, preventing intruders from accessing your information.
There are many other ways where both your business and personal data can be safeguarded, even ranging from basic things to keep in mind such as not sharing your password over unprotected or public networks etc. The main thing to keep in mind is to exercise caution especially with sensitive data, and ensure that reasonable precautions and steps have been taken to keep this information safe.
