When you plan your business, you must not forget one of the most important, yet perhaps one of the most easily overlooked aspects; security. It’s a nice idea to think that nothing bad will happen, and that everyone who comes into contact with your business has only the best of intentions, but this is in fact far from the truth; there are many cyber criminals whose sole intent is to hack into businesses and steal important information. This can cripple a business severely, or even shut it down forever.

This means it is imperative that you implement a variety of security measures within your business, to stop – as much as possible – this from happening. You can also incorporate high-end security measures to safeguard your company’s online data. For instance, by opting for cloud data encryption service, you can ensure that sensitive data stay secure from data breach or theft. You can avail such services through a data security company website similar to https://privacera.com/products/enterprise-grade-encryption/ or contact a service provider near your location.

As for what steps to take to ensure data security from your end, you can read on to find out more.

Good Passwords

Just as you would keep important physical items in a locked room, perhaps with an alarm to prevent or deter theft, you should do the same with your important digital documents and files too. It may sound impossible – after all, how can a digital file be locked away? – but in reality, it is a simple security measure that can save you a lot of problems. The answer lies in passwords.

If you can ‘lock’ your customers’ payment details, names, and addresses, or your own banking details, or your entire network away by using strong passwords, then they will remain much safer. Choose passwords that are difficult to guess. The best ones are random strings of letters and numbers, and you might want to use special characters too to make it even stronger.

You can lock workstations when no one is using them, as well as use passwords to prevent entry into the network, specific programs, websites, and individual files.

A Strong Firewall

Without a strong firewall in place on your system, viruses and other problems can easily slip through, causing havoc when they are unleashed on your computer. They come in all kinds of shapes and forms, and arrive in a variety of ways, but the most common are through email attachments and links.

If you have firewall hardware from sonicwallonline.co.uk in place, you will be stopping this from happening. The viruses that would have gone on to cause problems in your business will be stopped as they come across the firewall, which serves as a barrier against them getting further into your system.

Of course, a good firewall is only as effective as the way it is used, and although it might be tempting, you should never switch it off as you could be setting yourself up for big problems.

Regular Backups

Regularly backing up your data, and then removing that backup from the site, or using the cloud as your backup source, is crucial. There is no point in backing up to a different area on the same computer, or backing up to an external drive which then stays in your office. You must have that backup kept separately.

Although a backup won’t, in itself, protect your business from theft (either physical or cyber), it will minimize the damage done should it happen. At least you will be able to restore your documents, and your business can continue trading. If you have no backup, you would have no business.