Best Ways to Protect your Data in 2019

You have good reason to be concerned about the personal and financial information of your business. For every product that has been created to protect sensitive information, like passwords, financial records, or customer health records, there are just as many individuals working to find ways to get around these products. Malware, phishing scams, and hackers are threats to the security of your business.

If you are not a tech savvy individual, you may think that there is little that you can do to protect your data. The truth is that there are a number of straightforward and common-sense practices that you can employ to keep your private data safe from threats.

Encrypt Your Data

You might be thinking that this was going to be non-techie. As complicated as encrypting your data may sound, the truth is that there are a number of the tools that are available that make encrypting your data simple.

In fact, the operating system on your computer may already come with an encryption program designed to encrypt the files on your hard drive. The programs that come with your operating system aren’t designed to protect you from government investigation because the creators of the operating system are required by law to give the encryption key to the government if they ask for it. However, the encryption programs are powerful enough to keep prying eyes away from your private information.

Backup Your Data

Ransomware is a term that you have likely heard with greater frequency in recent months. The idea of ransomware is that hackers will introduce a program onto your computer that will encrypt all of the information on it. As a result, you will no longer have access to any of the information on your computer.

The hackers promise that if you pay the ransom, they will decrypt the information on your computer, allowing you to once again have access to it. Unless you pay what they demand, your business will grind to a halt.

Backing up your data to an external drive protects your business. You can easily restore your computer using the external drive and keep your business operating while at the same time frustrating the plans of those cyber criminals.

Application Protection

Your applications are the gatekeepers to you and your customer’s private information. They control access to things like:

• Credit card account details
• Email addresses
• Health records
• Personal data
• Customer information

Application protection software helps you by allowing you to determine whether an application should be launched without restrictions or if it should be launched in an isolated area. Dangerous applications or those that are deemed untrustworthy are isolated. This prevents unknown applications from activating on your computer.

These programs give you the control to decide how different applications can access your files, folders, registry keys, etc. They allow you to protect your data by controlling the read/write access your applications have to your data files.

Install Anti-Malware Protection

If you do not have anti-malware protection installed on your computer, you’re asking for problems. Anti-malware protection is fundamental to protecting your computer. Malware includes things like Trojan horses, spyware, worms, and other forms of malicious code. Malware is everywhere. It’s in the emails you receive, it’s in the freeware that you download, and it’s in the photos and files that friends send to you.

The only way that you’re going to prevent your computer from getting infected is to have a good antivirus protection program and to periodically scan your system or your computer for spyware. You can do some common-sense things too, such as avoid email links to websites that look suspicious.

Or You can acquire some Data Engineer Skillset as well. That’s not always enough, though, because criminals are adept at making their dangerous emails look like they are coming from a friend or someone you trust.

When It Is Not in Use, Turn It off

One of the simplest things that you can do to protect your data is to turn off your computer or your laptop when you’re not using it. Devices that are constantly on and are constantly connected to the Internet are like an open door for unwanted attacks.

Properly protecting your data can mean the difference between having a thriving business with customers who trust you and seeing your business close its doors. Many small and medium businesses that are victims of data breaches usually cannot recover and shutdown within the year. Don’t let this happen to you. Take steps to protect the personal and financial data of your business.