Why Your Business Needs a Data Security Policy
Today, the competitive business environment is data-driven. Data provides key insights into your customers and business performance that helps you make better decisions and improve processes. However, the sudden influx of employees working remotely exposes your organization’s information to several security threats.
According to the FBI, cybersecurity complaints increased from 1,000 to 4,000 complaints daily during the COVID-19 pandemic. The growing number of data breaches only validates that data security should be a top priority.
Data Security Versus Data Privacy
A well-crafted data security policy is critical to protecting your organization’s data from unauthorized access. It is important to understand the difference between data security and data privacy to develop a clearly defined data security policy. Data security is the process of securing sensitive information, such as company and customer data, from unauthorized access and exploitation. On the other hand, data privacy, also known as information privacy, is the process of managing how information is collected, used, stored and disseminated by an organization.
Risks and Consequences of Not Having a Data Security Policy
Despite the growing number of data breaches, most small and midsized businesses do not have well-established data security policies. The lack of a data security program opens the door to a wide variety of security risks, such as data theft, data tampering and unauthorized access to sensitive information. The impact of a single data breach can be much more devastating and result in huge financial loss. It can also have the following serious consequences:
Damage Brand Reputation: A security breach can tarnish your brand’s image and drive away potential customers. Your customers will lose trust and confidence in your company.
Disrupt Business Operations: The period of downtime from the moment a security incident occurs, right up to restoration, significantly affects business operations, leading to low productivity, revenue loss and unhappy customers.
Legal Implications: Organizations that fall victim to data breaches face serious consequences including fines, legal action and compensation to customers.
Loss of Intellectual Property: A data breach not only puts your company and customer information at risk, but you also run the risk of losing patents, blueprints, and other certifications.
Proactive and Preventative Strategies to Protect Your Data
The truth is anyone can become a victim of data breaches. The costs of recovering your compromised data can be greater than taking proactive measures to prevent breaches from occurring in the first place.
Protecting your organization’s most valuable asset requires far more than an IT security program. Having a well-documented information security policy in place is an important step to protect sensitive data and minimize threats. Apart from setting up the policy, you should constantly communicate guidelines and best practices for data protection across your organization.
Conquer the Challenge of Data Policies
For any organization, data is a valuable asset that needs to be protected at all costs. Adding to the challenge are the constantly evolving and complex data privacy regulations that every business should comply with.
To find out how you can secure your data while staying compliant with regulations, contact us now.
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