Reopen Your Business with Confidence

As the COVID-19 pandemic rolls on, many businesses continue to operate remotely with an eye toward reopening their office soon. Today, we thought it would be a perfect time to go over a couple of things that small business owners will need to address as people begin coming back into the workplace. 

Defend Your Staff

Regardless of where your employees are doing business from, having the protections in place to cover your data and infrastructure is important. Since data security is extremely important for almost every business, it won’t hurt to remind your team how they fuel data and network security. Here are some practices you should consider training your staff on:

• Maintain password hygiene: Passwords and passphrases need to be unique and complex enough as to not be guessed by hackers. Best practices for password hygiene include:
  • Not reusing your passwords
  • Updating your passwords frequently
  • Not sharing your passwords
  • Using a password manager
• Only use secure connections: Data can be intercepted and stolen when sending it from an insecure connection. Be sure to have the tools, like a VPN, that will allow for reliable and secure data transmission, regardless of what network it is on.
• Push software updates: You’ll want to update and patch software regularly. 
• Use MFA: Multi-factor authentication gives authentication a second step, further securing your data behind an alternate, randomly-generated passcode. 

Secure Your Business’ Physical Assets

You would be surprised how much digital theft is done by someone who gained access to credentials in person. To secure your place of business, you will want to:

• Control access: The best way to secure physical access to your hardware is to control who has access to what. By requiring authentication to get access to physical assets, you won’t have to worry as much about theft and user-based catastrophe. 
• Keep an eye on your business: Monitoring your business using digital cameras, and access logs is a great way to both deter people, and allow for quick resolution if something were to happen. 

Insulate Your Data Storage Systems

Possibly the largest risk to continuity that your business will face, your data isn’t inherently resilient. It can be damaged, deleted, and manipulated. That’s why you will want to:

• Track your data: Knowing where data is, how it is being used, and who is using it are important considerations. 
• Restrict access to those who need it: The less exposed your data is, the less that can go wrong. To protect your data from loss, you should be diligent about controlling access to it.
• Maintain a data backup: You will need to keep your data secured by backing it up. Using the 3-2-1 rule is a solid practice here. That is keeping three copies of your data on two separate types of media, one of which is offsite.

There is a lot to take in here, but we think that once you understand, your data will be safer than ever. Call the IT professionals at Directive today at 607.433.2200 if you need more information.