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Organisations and companies that spend millions on securing their private data often end up falling prey to hacks and leaks. This is true of massive corporations, SME’s and even political parties.
Simply look at how Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was compromised just days before an election. Something as a simple and seemingly harmless as a former aide keeping emails on her computer caused the FBI to reopen an investigation they’d spent years trying to make the United States forget.
So, if its so easy to fall prey to simple mistakes when it comes to data, how can you do to truly protect company’s data? Well for starters here are three measures you can implement that will secure your data from your entire staff, even those who do not usually deal with sensitive information.
In an ideal world, you could trust all your employees with whatever data passed through your company. Unfortunately, it’s often due to workers in junior positions accidentally leaking login details that data breaches happen. You may trust them fully – you wouldn’t have hired them otherwise – but mistakes happen. When those mistakes do happen, it helps a lot if the damage is limited.
Often the initial breach is not the worst thing that happens but more so the number of data hackers are able to access because most companies have very lax systems when it comes to data and this often means many more employees have access to data they don’t need to access. So make sure to limit access to data to only employees and stakeholders who genuinely need to be able to access certain data and get a cyber insurance quote.
2. Educate Your Staff
You might think that everyone knows what a phishing email looks like. You’d be wrong. At least, you’re partially wrong. While we all have a good idea what a poor attempt at phishing looks like, there are more sophisticated attackers who pay attention to detail and do their research before a phishing attempt. Not only might junior staff fall for that, but you could too.
For this reason, you need to educate yourself and your staff on how to identify phishing and other scams. You need to educate them on what steps to take before sharing sensitive information or inputting login details. This shouldn’t be something you only do once, either. Complacency is inevitable, and a regular refresher can save you a lot of trouble – and money.
3. Get the Right Tools
It’s not good enough to simply educate your staff on how to stay safe. Your responsibility goes further. You need to give them tools that will help them follow best practices – another important piece of software is a password manager. Asking anyone to create complex passwords that they change regularly is a tough sell. No one wants to constantly have to request a new password. A password manager solves the problem by creating passwords that work, giving you the ability to change them easily on a regular basis and keep them all safe.
