To one degree or another, data breaching is a problem that affects nearly every industry. From healthcare, to finance, to retail, to technology, no matter what field you work in, your company’s data is seemingly always at risk.
And if you’re a small business owner, with fewer resources to allocate towards securing your business’s private information, this may be a worrisome topic for you. But even with minimal resources, there are steps you can take to lessen your business’s risk of data breach.
Here are 3 ways you can help secure your small business’s data.
- Sift through data regularly
Think of this as spring cleaning, but for your small business. In the same way that you go through your closet seasonally, getting rid of items you haven’t worn or used in a while, you should sift through your business’s data and dispose of files that you no longer need. Minimizing your data collection is one of the simplest ways to lower your business’s risk of data breach. After all, hackers can’t take information that is no longer in the system.
- Take Precautions in handling remaining data
After you’ve disposed of files that no longer serve a use within the company, it’s critical to take precautions in the way you handle the remaining data. One way to do this is to consolidate data or to keep data in as few locations as possible. In other words, you should avoid giving employees permanent access to documents that they will only need temporarily. If an employee no longer needs a document for a task at hand, it’s best that they no longer have access to it.
- Regulate employee computer use
If you’re a small business owner, you’ve likely fostered a work culture based on mutual trust and respect between yourself and employees. For this reason, you might be opposed to regulating employee computer use, fearing that this will come across as distrusting or as a slap on the wrist. However, regulating employee computer use is essential in securing your business’s data for a couple of reasons that have nothing to do with employee distrust. First, if employees are using their work computer for non-business related purposes, they could accidentally download software that hasn’t been approved, putting the confidential data on their computer in jeopardy. Additionally, you don’t want to run the risk of an employee mistakenly visiting an unsecured website. Thus, by regulating employee computer use or by enforcing a work-use only computer policy, you lessen the chances of incurring a data breach.
In sum, even small businesses should take steps to secure their information from the threat of data breach. Though this may take some time, money, and effort the benefits of being proactive certainly outweigh the monumental costs that the company would face if a data breach were to occur.
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