Information security is one of the most important aspects of the work of any company. Loss of sensitive data can affect not only profit but also its reputation. Let's take a closer look at what information protection measures you can take right now and what consequences you will face if you do not deal with this issue.
In what areas is information security important?
Nowadays, there is not a single industry that doesn't require taking care of the company's information security. The times when data was stored on paper, and documents with confidential information were hidden in safes, are in the past. Any enterprise operates on a specific array of data that is prohibited to be transferred to third parties. Information security needs to be increased in some industries. First of all, we mean those organizations that work with the client base and their personal data. Such organizations include:
- banks;
- insurance companies;
- medical institutions (polyclinics, hospitals);
- online stores.
Nevertheless, one cannot name a field in which information security is not needed. This is a mandatory aspect of work for any business.
What negative consequences an organization may face if there is no good information protection?
The primary result is confidential information leakage. Nevertheless, this problem is not the worst one, as it may result in much more damaging consequences. Let's simulate several unpleasant situations that can affect the business significantly.
So, attackers gain access to the customer base of the online store. Personal data of buyers is publicly available or it can go to competitors for a fee. A person whose information has become available to third parties will face a stream of spam on email or advertising messages in instant messengers. For the company, the main risk, in this case, is customer loss.
Customers may like the online store of a competitor who gained access to their data. As a result, they will buy the same goods on another site.
For banks, the consequences will be even more unpleasant. Fraudsters will have access to bank card and account data. A bank or credit institution will lose money, and the higher the level of organization, the more significant amounts we are talking about.
Then, as we know, health facilities are responsible for preserving patient data. Information about visitors to hospitals and clinics may contain information about socially stigmatized pathologies, for example, mental or sexually transmitted diseases. The result may be discrimination against a particular person, blackmail by intruders who have gained access to medical information and threaten to make it public. For the disclosure of medical secrecy, the medical worker must pay a fine, and in some cases even imprisonment is possible. But punishment is imposed not only for deliberate actions on the part of employees of the institution. If information about patients' diseases becomes publicly available, the victim can contact public authorities and receive compensation. It's absolutely right to do it.
The disclosure of sensitive data directly affects the income and image of the organization. Customers whose information has become available to outsiders will not have a wish to continue to use the company's services and will choose competitors instead. If the data leakage led to a scandal, the reputation of the enterprise will be significantly undermined. Sometimes such cases turn out to be critical, and it takes years to restore the image. In some cases, business leaders cannot restore their previous reputation at all. As a result, the company is closed.
What can we do to prevent such problems? The answer is simple: protect your business. Information security is a comprehensive work that involves the implementation of various systems and solutions. Sometimes you have to hire outsourcing specialists or open a security department and hire qualified staff. As a rule, this is necessary for large companies operating a large array of confidential information. But there are also basic rules that you need to follow to protect your business. So, keep reading and we will tell you how to do it.
What ensures business information security?
First of all, we will determine how you can lose sensitive data. The possible reasons include:
- Outside hacking;
- insider information disclosure.
The second problem can't always be solved even by non-disclosure agreements signed by employees. According to statistics, up to 66% of leakages occur due to the faults of trusted ones. Other studies show even higher risks - up to 80%. Therefore, it is necessary to protect business and data both from the outside and from the inside.
You can set up user authentication, set passwords, monitor each employee step yourself. In any case, this is not enough, and control by the head is irrational. To ensure the proper level of information security, you need to invest some money and implement new solutions in the company's work. All your investments will quickly pay off by means of optimizing business processes. In the future, it will help to preserve the organization's income and reputation in the market. Let's take a look at several solutions that will help to protect your business data.
Secure data storage
Data can be stored on a working computer if you have just started developing a startup or have organized a small business. Over time, the number of information will increase, you will hire new employees, so the previous methods will not be enough anymore. It is better to store data so that workers and you could have access to it from any location. It must be impossible for outsiders to use your data. There are two main options you can choose from: cloud storage and server rental.
Cloud storage is convenient to use, but statistics show a critically high level of hacking - up to 80% of companies that use clouds faced hacking attempts in 2019-2020, according to an Ermetic survey. We offer a more reliable way to protect data - storage server rent. You can choose the best rate based on your business's data needs. Having selected a storage server, you will get reliable protection of corporate information with the ability to access data from anywhere in the world.
Insider information leakage protection
Disclosure of corporate data is a problem that can be solved by implementing information protection systems in the company's infrastructure. One of such solutions is the DLP system. With its help, you can organize a digital security perimeter around the company, beyond which it will not be possible to freely display classified information. The DLP system provides secure data transfer beyond this security loop. Transmission means any way of sending files, including by e-mail, Bluetooth, even printing on a printer is included. Such systems block the possibility of distributing sensitive documents of high importance or notify the user about a problem; it depends on the type of software product.
Site location
The first option for small sites is virtual hosting. This is quite budgetary but remember that this option does not guarantee the complete security of the data. Different sites coexist on hosting, and their resources are not sufficiently isolated. From the point of view of information security, it is better to choose a more reliable option, for example, to rent a virtual VDS/VPS server. It provides better resource isolation and, as a result, better data security. Another option is to rent a dedicated server. This is even more reliable than VDS/VPS, although it does not deny its advantages. On the virtual server, the user receives resources allocated for himself, but still has neighbors on the physical server. On the allocated server the physical server resources fully belong to the same client.
The reliability of the CMS can be included in the same category. Hacking protection is one of the characteristics that you need to pay attention to when choosing a content management system. If the CMS is not secure enough, sensitive data can fall into the hands of hackers or it can simply be found in the public domain. We have already told you how, due to a developer error on one of the top paid systems, the search engine indexed pages with customer orders in online stores. After the updates were released, the problem disappeared, but the reputation of the companies whose sites worked on this CMS decreased slightly, as well as the reputation of the system itself. This fact once again clearly confirms the need for information protection in any area. When choosing CMS, we advise you to study the feedback and hacking statistics, as well as our publications containing the overview of popular systems - you can find them here and here.
