I.T. Supply Solutions wants your company’s proprietary data to remain secure. We employ industry best practices for IT asset disposition (ITAD) and data destruction.
Today, our team explains what your business needs to know about computer security in today’s high-tech world.
Every Business Faces Risks
Don’t think that because you’re a small business owner your computers won’t be a victim of data breaches. You must protect your crucial assets, whether it’s product design, customer information, or invoices from cyber or physical threats. You need to have a mindset that computer security is vital to your business rather than a luxury.
People Represent Your Strongest & Weakest Link
People are your company’s greatest asset and line-item expense. Your staff is also your strongest and weakest link for protecting your company’s assets.
Education
It all starts with educating your employees. In 2020, almost one-third of all security breaches on the enterprise level happened due to social engineering techniques employed by hackers, and 90% of those were phishing scams.
The idea is that your employee will receive an email saying “URGENT” or the email address looks like it’s from an official source like a government agency. Once someone opens the email, malware can take hold and infect a computer. After it enters the computer, the virus might find a way to read confidential information. This includes passwords, financial information, or private customer data.
Educate your employees to delete these phishing emails without opening them or send them to the Spam folder. Many email programs automatically send phishing emails to Spam, while others may warn you about possible viruses in emails.
Beef Up Physical Assets for Your Workers
Remote workers following the COVID-19 pandemic took computers home with them. They used personal networks to access remote tools on company computers. Home networks may not be as secure as ones at the office.
Make sure you teach employees how to best set up their home networks to prevent intrusions. Consider downloading robust cybersecurity programs to protect the laptops your workers use at home.
Watch Out for Theft
In the healthcare industry alone, 68% of data breaches occurred due to theft, loss of devices, or files back in 2012. As telehealth and Iot devices become more common in healthcare, the risk for cybersecurity breaches increases dramatically.
Employ simple security measures to protect the physical security of devices. Workers may find themselves in a hotel, restaurant, or cafe working. All it takes is one brief lapse, and a laptop computer could vanish from sight.
Personal storage security should follow best industry practices. Even if someone steals a computer, it should be difficult or impossible for a hacker to access information. Use robust passwords for computer access and cloud-based applications. Employ two-factor authentication on your most valuable assets. Limit user access depending on the level your employee needs. Entry-level workers may not need to view vital information compared to managers and supervisors.
Disposal of Physical Assets
Data destruction on older equipment needs to follow best industry practices. This means writing over any information left on the hard drive, degaussing the physical components to make the information unreadable, and then shredding the hard drive completely.
I.T. Supply Solutions can help your company dispose of physical hard drives. Protect the crown jewel of your digital assets. Don’t leave your employee’s information or customer’s data out into the open by selling old computer equipment or hard drives to just anyone. We’ll perform proper ITAD and document precisely what happens to your old equipment.
Contact I.T. Supply Solutions or call 859-694-0602 for more information.
