Information security is important for everyone these days. There is no such thing as not having valuable information to protect; even personal details and files that you think are not important enough are still considered targets for attackers. It is even more important to take information security seriously in a business environment.
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There are a lot of information security best practices to follow if you want to better protect your business information. Mission-critical files need to be encrypted and sufficient security measures must be put in place. However, following the basic requirements of information security alone is not enough. You also need these three strategies to help protect your business from cyberattacks.
Employee Awareness
Information security is never a top-down process. While you can set security policies – which we will discuss later – and decide on which security measures to implement for maximum protection, the involvement of all stakeholders, particularly your employees, is still crucial. You want employees to know how to protect sensitive business information at all times.
This is where a good security awareness training program comes in handy. Security awareness training must be part of your people development programs. The more aware your team members are about the security risks they face on a regular basis, the more effective they’ll be at mitigating those risks. Click here to learn about security awareness training for your employees.
On-Site Encryption
Don’t wait until files and business-related data are in the cloud before encrypting them. Encryption is something that needs to happen on-premise, especially with the types of attacks and risks lurking from around the corner. Besides, on-site encryption is also recommended for protecting your data against offline risks such as information theft.
Creating a blanket encryption across all of your devices is easier than you think. Even in a BYOD environment, you can still monitor personal devices and determine the minimum required encryption level to better protect business-related files. Devices that don’t meet the required standards will not be able to move (or even access) sensitive files.
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Simpler Policies
Having a clear and comprehensive set of information security policies is a start, but it is certainly far from being the ideal protection level. Before you can get your information, security policies implemented, you must first get everyone involved. This means making sure that every employee understands the set of policies you are distributing.
The task is more challenging when you have a complex set of policies in hand. This is why simplifying your security policies is a must. At the very least, you want to distribute a simpler version of your information security policy so that everyone who reads it can understand what they need to do and how to handle different situations.
While we’re at it, don’t forget to add SOPs for dealing with data theft, breaches, and other information security incidents. This will complete your set and add yet another layer of security. Combined with the other strategies that we discussed in this article; you can establish a more comprehensive protection over your sensitive business information from the start.