5 Ways to Protect Your Business from a Data Breach

Think your business is too small to have a data breach? Think again. According to Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Report, 58 percent of data breaches recorded in 2017 happened to small and medium-sized businesses. In this blog, we offer five tips for keeping your information secure:

1. Know Where Your Information Is Stored

Data breach prevention begins with knowing where your paper files and digital files are stored. You have documents stored locally in file cabinets and boxes as well as digital information on computers. Getting a handle on your storage situation helps you keep information secure. A qualified records and information management provider can inventory your hard copy and digital information and make sure it’s tracked during its retention lifecycle.

2. Back Up Your Data

A backup plan is the next step in protecting your business from a data breach. Electronic vaulting offers automated backup to the cloud through your data protection provider. Offline backup is performed internally on your local server. You can use these methods separately or together.

3. Rotate Your Media Off-Site

When using an offline backup solution, it’s important to protect your backup media from unauthorized access. With a backup rotation service, your tapes are transported to a media storage vault in water/fireproof cases for secure off-site storage. Then tapes are cycled back to you daily, weekly, or monthly.

4. Shred Confidential Documents

It happens in every organization that relies on office shredders: Documents with personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI) are discarded in trash or recycling receptacles. Paper shredders are time-consuming and unreliable, so employees tend to avoid them.

Outsourcing your document disposal to a professional shredding and destruction company keeps customer and patient privacy under wraps. Security containers are placed in your office, allowing your employees to deposit confidential files in the blink of an eye. Your documents are collected and destroyed either on-site at your facility with a mobile shredding truck or off-site at a secure shredding plant.

5. Educate Staff

Many data breaches result from employee negligence and mistakes. If one of your staff accidentally opens a malicious email, it can compromise your entire business network. Ongoing training to helps your team understand the risks and utilize breach prevention strategies.

For more information security and data breach prevention tips, please contact us by phone or complete the form on this page.

Records Management Center provides businesses throughout Augusta, Evans, Thomson, Martinez, GA, Aiken, SC, and the Central Savannah River Area with professional shredding and destruction solutions.