Four Questions You Need to Ask Yourself About Your Data’s Security

Data security always needs to be considered as one of your most important business priorities. After all, the ramifications of data loss are wide-reaching and severe. To help you ensure that your data security is at the level it needs to be, we’ve put together five questions you need to answer regarding your business’ security preparedness.

“Are my processes based in security?”

Or, in other words: is your work environment designed in such a way that the most secure option is the default? End-to-end security is one thing, incorporating it into a proactive process is quite another. A foundation based upon secure functionality will help lead to better outcomes. Are your users trained to exclusively follow the most secure processes?

If not, this is where you need to start. A company culture steeped in security awareness is one of the best ways to protect your data, simply because it will help to minimize any improvisation that your employees would otherwise attempt. Educate your users properly, and they will turn into one of your biggest security assets.

“How regulated is access to different files?”

On the topic of your employees, how much data is accessible by any given person? There is no reason that one of your salespeople should have access to payroll information, just as your fulfillment division shouldn’t know any payment information beyond whether a bill was paid or not. Securing your data and only enabling access through role-based permissions with private usernames and multiple authentication measures will help shore up your risks. Remember, these permissions and access controls should be audited regularly to ensure that the data they protect remains on a need-to-know basis.

“Is my data encrypted?”

Or, as this question reads after being encrypted on a random website:

“?b64b0EbdbZMVy0aghJaLO+x2ic7F02JurazKFq4r6dv0y7RpMWaNL00qDWW1nQ39vgmELHKNtUl42u0iIhoc4AM1w==?64b”

Of course, without the decryption key, you can only assume that I’m being honest, which is kind of the point. Making sure that your data is encrypted can protect its contents should it be stolen. This means that you will want to be sure that the answer to this question is…

“?b64LQwXhsseeRhWY0MptIJLxsV4NyLYoBpSAzcypRZMD7BEQmmnDgbB4I6ks8ujGmza?64b”

…or, decrypted: “It sure is!”

The topic of encryption is far too complex to go into here in any detail. If you’d like to learn more about encryption and how it can help protect your business’ sensitive data, call us and ask one of our technicians to explain it to you (or to help you implement it)!

“Have I tested my security measures?”

Once your security measures are implemented, your job is far from done. To ensure that they remain effective, they must be stress-tested and evaluated under controlled conditions. What assets are the most important to protect, and what threats are they most in danger of succumbing to? How likely are these threats to come into play, and how are you vulnerable to them?

Establishing these benchmarks will give you greater insights into the weaknesses inherent in your processes and how they can be remedied.

Washington Works can help you find these insights and put the best solutions in place in response. To learn more about this process, reach out to our professionals at 301-571-5040.