So do you know where your data is located?

Is your data secure and safely stored where your competitors can’t reach it? Or worse, is your data vulnerable to the risk of theft?

The information needed to build knowledge and wisdom in your business resides in your data. It’s your secret sauce. It’s your most important asset. Protecting it should be your highest priority.

For the most part, people understand the value of their data and the need to secure it but fail to keep an accurate accounting of where it resides. Employees constantly take thumb drives, external hard-drives, laptops, and many other types of external media with them outside of the office. There is no guarantee that data will be returned or be protected from falling into the wrong hands.

Only when there is a breach do people realize there are gaps in their security policy. Once security is breached, data owners often go to extremes to protect their data from ever being exposed again.

So how do you prevent data breaches from occurring?

Implement an electronic systems policy that your employee signs. This may not protect your data, but it does provide legal recourse if an employee loses or compromises your data.

Don’t store important documents on a laptop PC. Laptops are constantly being stolen and rarely is the data on them ever recovered.

Don’t allow the use of personal storage device like iPods, thumb drives, external hard-drives, etc. It is too easy to copy data to these devices.

Be aware of how people are attaching to your business network. Most companies use Virtual Private Network (VPN) client software to provide remote access to their computing environment. This can open the door to a whole host of threats that includes the ability to copy your data to an unmanaged device.

Have PC’s protected behind a firewall. If your PC is not protected behind a secure firewall, then it should be disconnected from the network.

Encrypt your hard-drive. Until recently this required external software that would install an encryption algorithm limiting who can view the content on the PC. With Windows 7 Ultimate “Bitlocker to Go”, an encryption software tool, is installed and it will encrypt the entire hard drive.

At Synergy Technical, we provide a comprehensive environment that prevents your employees from having to copy data to a personal or local device. As long as there is an Internet connection and a web browser, you can access your data. Of course we realize there are times where you need to take your data off-line and we provide methods for managing this.

The point is we take security seriously and go to extremes to ensure your data are protected.