Improving the security of your business can involve a variety of different measures, depending on your specific needs and risks. Most businesses operate in a variety of mediums, with most sensitive information being stored in either print or digital formats. Securing both print and digital records and communications is vital to ensure the safety of your business and clientele.Â
But a well-run business will do more than just secure assets. Taking steps to ensure that employees maintain confidentiality and follow best practices for handling data can go a long way to prevent misunderstandings or common, small yet potentially fatal mistakes when handling sensitive information. Creating security processes and a culture around adhering to them is vital to ensure that secure data remains secure.
Here are a few steps you can take to ensure that information is stored securely and handled with care within your business.
Conduct a Security Assessment
A thorough security assessment can help you identify vulnerabilities and potential risks in your current setup. This can include physical security risks (such as weak locks or lack of surveillance cameras), as well as cybersecurity risks (such as outdated software or a lack of data encryption). If your business doesn’t employ security professionals, it may be best to hire an outside consultant to assess your business for physical and digital risks.
Develop a Security Plan
Once you have identified potential risks, you can develop a plan to address them. This can include measures such as installing security cameras, implementing photo ID cards and other access controls, or upgrading your software to address vulnerabilities. A security consultant will often recommend these and other solutions to bolster your security.
Train Employees
Employees are often the first line of defence in protecting your business, but an untrained employee can also be the greatest risk to the security of your assets and information. Make sure they understand security risks and how to identify and respond to them. Regular training and awareness programs can help to keep employees up-to-date on the latest threats and best practices. Building an internal culture that encourages awareness of and respect for security is vital to ensuring the ongoing security of your business.
Building a Comprehensive Incident Response Plan
Having a comprehensive incident response plan in place can help you quickly and effectively respond to security incidents, minimise damage, and resume normal operations as soon as possible. Security breaches can cause chaos and raise the emotional temperature in a work environment, which makes having a plan vital to ensuring your preparedness. After identifying the vulnerabilities your business faces, ensure that you have a comprehensive plan tailored to each vulnerability that you can follow in the event of a breach to minimise damages and decrease disruption to operations.
Implement Digital Security Protocols
Establishing digital best practices, such as password policies, two-factor authentication, and regular backups, can help protect your organisation from cyber threats. Leaving information stored digitally in any unsecured format, or behind security protocols that are easily bypassed, can pose a serious threat to your assets, and the way your employees, clients, and peers view your company. There are a wide variety of blanket security solutions available, from firewalls and antivirus software to intrusion detection systems and data encryption. These can be an effective way to protect your organisation from a variety of threats.
Keep Software and Systems Up-to-Date
Keep all software and systems on your network up-to-date with the latest patches and updates. This can help to protect against known vulnerabilities. Even the most advanced digital security solutions will eventually be breached and need to be maintained and updated constantly to ensure security against emerging threats.
Cloud Solutions
If you feel unprepared to address the wide variety of threats faced by all businesses that do business digitally, cloud-based solutions can help you improve security and reduce costs by taking advantage of the security measures provided by experienced, digitally native cloud service providers.
Regularly Monitor
Regularly monitoring your physical assets and digital systems for suspicious activity can help you identify and respond to security incidents before they cause significant damage. Hiring security and IT personnel is the best way to ensure security over time,
Review and Update Your Plans
Security risks are ever evolving. Review your plans and protocols regularly and update them as necessary to keep up with changes in the threat landscape. If you do not employ security personnel, it may be wise to schedule regular consultations with a business security professional to ensure that you are addressing risk vectors your business may need to address.
