How To Protect Your Customers’ Digital Data
If you deal with customer data, whether it is something as simple as an email address on your newsletter list, or more complex like billing information, there are things that you need to do to secure their data. This not only secures their data against theft, it also shows that you’re a trustworthy business that people will want to deal with. In this article we look at how you can make your data safer and more secure.
Your customers are your company’s most important assets. They have not only dared to trust you and invest in your services, but they are the people who your business has been built around, and you need every single one of them. In these complicated and digitised times we live in it is, unfortunately, becoming the norm for more sophisticated hacking efforts to access the data in our computers and execute ransomware attacks.
If your business relies on technology and its efficient running to protect your customers’ data, you too could be at risk of suffering from hacker attacks. Below, we explain how you can protect your customers’ digital data so that they don’t feel their privacy is at risk.
Invest In Disaster Recovery And Cloud Backup Solutions
Your customers trusted you when they decided to hand over their most private documents and leave these under your care. It is as a result of this that you should make sure you look after these documents properly.
Nothing can stop hacking attacks from happening, but there is a way in which you can ensure you protect your clients’ data in the right way and this is by investing in disaster recovery and cloud backup solutions. What these do is they help you recover operations in the wake of a ransomware attack by restoring a clean, uninfected version of your systems, and this is done in as little as 15 minutes at most.
Make Sure Your Computers Have Anti-Malware Protection
These days equipping your computers with anti-malware protection is a must. Malware, short for malicious software, is an extremely serious issue that attacks PCs without users noticing. It can be extremely damaging to computer systems, and it puts data at risk as this can be accessed, stolen and modified.
Anti-malware protection is therefore essential for your computers and business. This will ensure that your PCs are protected and that no hackers can penetrate your system and the data of your customers. In order to do this you just have to run a good anti-virus protection programme and to ensure you do periodic scans for spyware. Note that sometimes malware is disguised in the form of an email from a friend or family member and this is why you have to ensure protection is in place.
Secure Your Wireless Network
Something else you can do if you would like to protect your clients’ data and ensure this is safe from attacks and intrusion is to make sure your office’s wireless network is secure.
The first thing to do in order for you to improve the security of your network is to password-protect it. This will prevent nearby users from making use of it and from having unsolicited access to your and your customers’ data. “If you have a Wi-Fi network for your workplace, make sure it is secure, encrypted, and hidden. To hide your Wi-Fi network, set up your wireless access point or router, so it does not broadcast the network name, known as the Service Set Identifier (SSID). Password protect access to the router,” says FCC.gov.
Stay Up-To-Date With Legal Requirements
Governments are continually updating data protection laws in line with new technological advancements, and as a result of data breeches.
The new European Union wider GDPR Law is the biggest shakeup of data protection laws in theE.U in decades and affects everyone who does business within the E.U or U.K even if they are not located there.
It’s also importance to ensure that you’re following current PCI Compliance laws if you’re handling customer payments.
While you might think that processing customer’s data is fraught with issues, once you have a system in place and ensure that everyone works to the same process, you’ll soon find that you’ll hardly even notice the day-to-day management of data.
With the right disaster recovery plan in place you’ll also be safe in the knowledge that if the worst were to happen your back-ups will allow you to get back to work quickly and will little loss of business.