No matter if you use it to fill orders, meet payroll or to conduct any other business, your data has the potential to harm people if it falls into the wrong hands. Protecting your personal information is not only good for your image but also helps protect your business from costly lawsuits and other business losses.
Start by assessing the data your company has and how it is shared. Only keep what is essential to run your business and store it in a secure location. Make sure your employees only have the data they need to fulfill their tasks. Consider encrypting sensitive data while it travels between the database and the personal computers or mobile devices of your employees.
Create a plan to respond to security incidents and train your employees on it. You must also be aware of the latest threats and utilize hardware or software to prevent hackers from taking your data or using it for malicious purposes.
Encourage your employees to back up their data and store backups off-site. It’s a good idea to use cloud storage services that provide multi-user access and to set up your backups so they can be restored at an exact date.
Do not allow your employees to save information on their own personal computers, tablets or mobile phones, and discourage users from sharing logins to cloud storage services with other workers. Also, think about creating a system that will ensure that employees who leave your company, or transfer to different departments erase all personal information on their computers and devices.