Regardless of the size or type of business, every company owner must maintain certain documents. Internal papers, financial records, security video surveillance, and other files with personally identifiable information should all be saved securely.
According to IBM, in 2021, the United States had the highest average total cost of a data breach at $9.05 million. This was followed by Brazil ($6.82 million), the United Kingdom ($4.41 million), and Canada ($4.27 million). While the average cost of a data breach is high, there are ways business owners can help to protect their company’s confidential files. Here are five tips:
Protect important documents with the use of passwords
Many businesses don’t put passwords to their important digital files, which can lead to many problems. If someone gets access to your files without a password, they can steal your information, sell it to the competition, or do whatever they want. You must use a password to protect your important files to avoid this problem.
It’s an easy way to ensure that only authorized people can access them. You can also use two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security.
Hire an off-site video storage service
Business video surveillance is an excellent way to secure your property. You can use video cameras to monitor activity inside and outside your business premises. They can also be used to record footage of any incidents that occur.
However, storing this footage can be costly and time-consuming. The best way to overcome this problem is to hire video storage management solutions. These are businesses that provide storage space for your important documents. They usually have vaults or safes where you can store physical video storage of your surveillance.
The advantage of using these services is that they have security measures to protect your video files. They also allow businesses to access their documents remotely, which is essential for companies with employees who work remotely. Furthermore, off-site storage services often have disaster recovery plans in place, so businesses can rest assured that their documents will be safe in the event of a fire or flood.
Keep them backed up
The problem with digital files is that they can be lost or corrupted. That’s why it’s crucial to keep them backed up. That way, if something happens to the original, you will have a copy to fall back on.
You can use an external hard drive, a cloud-based storage service, or both. If you use an external hard drive, make sure to encrypt the data. This will help to protect your data if the hard drive is lost or stolen.
For paper documents, you can scan them and save them to a cloud-based storage service. That way, you will still have copies even if they are lost or damaged. Cloud-based storage allows data to be saved on remote servers that may be accessed from the internet. In the event of a natural disaster, fire, break-in, or if your computer’s hard drive fails, you won’t have to worry about the files. You can use accounting software, like QuickBooks or Xero, to keep track of who has access to files and whether they’ve been shared.
Create better internal policies
Without better internal policies, employees may not know how to handle or store confidential files. If this is neglected, this could lead to a data breach. A data breach would be catastrophic for the company and its customer base. This is why taking measures to prevent this from happening is so important.
Ensure that your small business has established policies that will soon become standard procedures. To ensure everyone is aware of the standards, share your internal regulations with your staff. Some of these policies can be:
- Don’t leave important information on the printer for anyone to see.
- Shred anything no longer relevant, such as decade-old personnel paperwork that might include their social security numbers.
- If an employee leaves, sever their access to your network as soon as possible to prevent them from stealing business information.
Include a non-disclosure clause in employment agreements
What happens if an employee leaves the company and decides to share confidential information with a competitor? If an employee breaches a non-disclosure agreement, they could face legal penalties. The best way to protect your company is to have a non-disclosure clause in your employment agreements. This will help prevent employees from sharing confidential information with anyone outside the company.
This will safeguard your organization and ensure that your workers know they are not to distribute or share proprietary information. Confidentiality provisions in an employment contract demonstrate that your firm is serious about privacy and might prevent various legal and practical issues.
Protect your company
You can use various methods to protect your confidential company files. The most important thing is to be proactive and plan ahead. Using the right tools and following best practices can keep your confidential data safe from prying eyes.
