How to Keep Data Safe in an Age of Data Breaches
Introduction
Cyber criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated every day. With that comes the need for businesses to keep up with their security measures. Cyber criminals are targeting companies that don’t take the necessary steps to protect themselves from cyber intrusions, because those businesses are easy targets. So, what can you do to protect your business? In this article we will discuss some ways you can keep your data safe from hackers and cyber criminals:
Data Protection
Data protection is the process of preventing unauthorized access to data. It can be achieved by encryption, authentication, authorization and access control. Data protection can also be achieved by limiting access to data (for example, through policies).
Data Encryption
Data encryption is the process of encoding data in a form that makes it unreadable to anyone who doesn’t have access to a decryption key. Encryption prevents unauthorized access to data in transit and at rest, making it one of the foundational security controls. It’s also important because many companies still don’t encrypt their sensitive information–and those that do often don’t use strong enough encryption algorithms or apply them correctly.
Encryption can be applied at various points in your organization’s IT infrastructure:
- On-disk: Data stored on disk drives can be encrypted before being written into files (on-disk) or after being read from files (at rest). When used properly, this method helps protect against unauthorized physical access by someone who may gain access through theft or hacking attacks like ransomware infections on company networks
Data Backup & Recovery
Data backup and recovery are two sides of the same coin. In fact, they’re so closely related that it’s easy to think of them as one big process.
Data backups are copies of your data that you create on a regular basis in order to protect yourself against data loss. Data recovery is the process by which you restore lost or damaged files from these backups when needed. Backups can take many forms: copies stored on an external hard drive; versions saved in cloud storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive; or even archives created by specific applications like Outlook email software (which automatically generates emails containing attachments).
Backups don’t have to be complex–in fact, there are many simple ways for people without technical expertise to protect themselves against losing important files forever!
Training for Employees
The most important thing you can do to protect your company’s data is to train your employees. It’s true that there are many ways to secure your information, but if someone on the inside is careless with their password or leaves a USB drive lying around, it doesn’t matter how well-protected your systems may be.
You should make sure that all of your employees receive training on best practices for keeping data safe–and not just once! If there are new threats or changes in technology that could impact security, make sure they’re updated accordingly. You’ll also want to test them periodically so as not only ensure they’re learning what they need but also identify any gaps in knowledge that need addressing before they become problems down the road (e.g., “I didn’t know this was an issue until my boss told me”).
These are some of the ways you can protect your data from cyber criminals.
- Data protection is not the only thing you need to do to keep your data safe. You also need to encrypt and backup your data, as well as train employees on how they can protect themselves from cyber criminals.
- Data encryption involves scrambling the information so that it cannot be read by anyone without the right key or password. It’s like putting an envelope with sensitive documents in a locked box before giving it to someone else; only those who have access will be able to see inside your envelope and read what’s inside–and even then, only if they have permission!
- Backing up means saving copies of all your important files somewhere else (e.g., another hard drive). This way if something happens to one copy of an important file, there will still be other copies around so nothing gets lost forever!
- Training helps people learn how best practices work so they know what steps are necessary when dealing with sensitive information such as social security numbers or credit cards numbers etcetera so there won’t be any accidents happening due
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can say that there are many ways to protect your data from cyber criminals. You just need to be aware of what is happening in the cyber world and take necessary precautions before it’s too late.