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Bayside Solutions

The Bayside Blog

Is Your Organization’s Data Safe?

Posted March 10th, 2011

You may not think that your company’s data is in danger. Maybe you think that only certain companies are targeted for data theft, like those that process payments or store other sensitive consumer data. Why would you need to worry about hackers?

But what about viruses? Your company’s intellectual property? Confidential information about your employees? Those laptops and flash drives that your employees use?

When most people think of data security being attacked, they think of external breaches: network hacking, wireless packet sniffing, malicious codes. But internal breaches occur just as frequently, both intentionally and accidentally. Internal threats can include:

  • Corporate espionage: employees recruited and paid by competitors to steal data
  • Malicious/disgruntled employees: employees with a grievance against the company may wish to do damage to the network
  • Unintentional breaches: employees install unauthorized software, open virus-infected email attachments or succumb to social engineering attacks
  • Human error: employees may lose a company laptop computer off-site, use an unsecured wi-fi connection to perform work, or transfer files from a flash drive onto an unauthorized computer

Data security breaches are a very real problem for all companies, and the time to address them is before they happen.

So how can you protect your company? With knowledge and planning.

Your IT professionals should not be the only ones who know your computer systems and networks. Company management should also have a basic understanding of them and how they could be exploited.
You must become familiar with the specific hardware and software that your company uses, the types of data and the manner in which data is stored on your networks, and the security systems that you have implemented to protect that data.

A successful data assessment plan will take into account the usage of all the individuals in your company, from those handling data collection and storage to those in human resources, to those in customer service interacting with your customers on a daily basis. It will also take into consideration all of the various forms of personal information that you collect and store from customers, consumers and employees as well as business information that should not reach your competitors. Companies should know what data is maintained, where that data is stored, and how it is protected.

Although your plan should be individually tailored to meet the specific needs of your company’s system security and data needs, any successful Data Assessment Plan should include a comprehensive strategy to investigate, remediate and respond to a data breach when it happens.

The time to protect your data is now. If you need help planning and executing a data security assessment plan for your company, call Bayside Solutions today. Our technology professionals can show you how to secure your network and keep your data safe.

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