Data has fast become the currency of the digital age. From enabling you to communicate with others to helping you tailor personalized strategies, data is key to running a successful organization. That’s why, for the sake of the security of your data, you need to invest in secure data storage.
The Importance of Data Security
Recent advancements in technology have made it easier for all organizations to collect, store, and use data to enhance all of its activities and tasks, but the caveat is that malicious entities are also after the same data. That’s why they target vulnerable organizations and hack into their databases and steal precious data.
According to a report by IBM, the average cost of a data breach is $3.86 million. On a more granular level, the cost of a person’s personally identifiable information (PII) data is $150 per record. Another report by Acronis revealed that 42% of all organizations experienced data loss in 2019. As a result, they experienced downtime that resulted in lost productivity.
These staggering figures are the reason secure data solutions are important for every organization.
How do you make sure your data is secure?
5 Ways to Protect Your Data
So, what’s the most secure way to store your data? When it comes to data security, there’s no one way to keep your data safe. You have to put in place several measures to ensure you have a robust system that is less prone to unauthorized access. Apart from using secure passwords and ensuring your systems are clean of viruses and malware, here are other important measures to take:
1. Create a Strong Privacy Policy
In its simplest form, a privacy policy is a legally binding statement that discloses the ways a party gathers, uses, discloses, and manages the data it collects and retains. A strong data policy will help reduce employee fraud and keep your organization from using the data in ways that will leave your data exposed to vulnerabilities. In short, it makes you accountable to those who have entrusted their information to you.
2. Back Up and Restore Data
Keeping multiple backup files of your data is another great way to ensure the safety of your data. Backups on secure data storage devices allow for fast access to the data when it’s needed. You must also back up your data in a secure cloud system in case of fire, floods, and other disasters that can damage physical data storage systems. Cloud storage also makes sure your data is accessible from anywhere in the world—to authorized users only, of course.
3. Use Systems Protected by Encryption
One of the most secure ways to store your data is to use systems that provide data protection via encryption. This is the process of taking data files and scrambling them into an unreadable format called cipher text. Encryption helps keep the confidentiality of digital data and makes it virtually “unhackable.” This is where secure data solutions from Ciphertex® lead the pack.
Developed by a team responsible for high-profile government agencies and departments, our solutions are some of the best on the planet.
4. Permanently Erase Unwanted Data
An inevitable characteristic of data is that it always changes. As a result, it often becomes redundant. In such instances, make sure to permanently erase such data. Many organizations are under the false notion that pressing Delete means that the erased data is permanently deleted and can never again be accessed.
It’s easy to recover data if it hasn’t been erased properly. As a part of protecting your data, you must ensure that you have a secure, documented process that uses proven software to fully erase your unwanted data and sanitize the media on which it resided.
5. Use Secure Data Storage Systems
Not every storage medium is meant to store important data. That’s why you must invest in secure data storage systems.
Apart from secure data storage, they also ensure secure data transport for those times you need to physically move your data from one location to another. This is particularly useful, these days, as remote work is becoming the norm in many industries.
Data – The New Gold that Needs Serious Protection
Data is the gold of the digital age. Those who control it have the power to use it for good or evil. As an organization with integrity, make sure to invest in data security. Failure to do so could put you and those who trust you at risk. Get in touch if you need help with secure data solutions. We’ll definitely watch your back.
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