As the world gets more and more connected via digital solutions, consumers and businesses should take effective measures to protect important information. Databases are the backbone of an organization. Understanding the risks your data faces and the importance of data security will help avoid any data breaches. Data security is a major concern when it comes to outsourcing data entry. However, outsourcing to a provider of reliable data entry services ensures confidentiality of data and minimizes cyber security risks.
Data security is critical also for home computer users. Client information, payment information, personal files, bank account details etc are hard to replace and potentially dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. Thorough data security begins with an overall strategy and risk assessment. This will enable you to identify the risks and what could happen if valuable data is lost through theft, malware infection or system crash.
Causes of Data Breaches
Data breaches continue to make big news and one of the latest trends is an increase in ransom malware that targets organizations such as hospitals, police stations and universities. Every organization should constantly focus on preventing, detecting and having the right capabilities in place to respond to data security incidents.
The 2nd annual Baker Hostetler Data Security Incident Response Report analyzed data from 300 incidents on which the national law firm advised in 2015. The sectors that were affected by cyber security were healthcare, financial services, retails and education. According to the study, the six main reasons for data security incidents are:
- Phishing, hacking or malware
- Employee action or mistake
- External theft
- Outsourcing to unreliable vendor
- Internal theft
- Loss or improper disposal of data
What to Consider
- Who accesses what data
- Who uses the internet, email system and how they access it
- Who will be allowed access and who will be restricted
- Whether or not to use a password and how it should be maintained
- Proper training of staffs and enforcing data security
- What type of firewalls and antimalware solutions to put in place
4 Security Measures to Adopt
Secured Facilities: Any Credit Union that houses member information must undergo audits to ensure that the information is kept secure. Third party audits are necessary to ensure that there are stringent controls in place to guarantee the security of your data and documents. Also, you must have facility-wide physical security measures in place, including employee access cards, doors alarms and internal and external security cameras.
Compliance: All privacy laws must be continually met which includes HIPAA, FACTA and Gramm- Leach- Bliley Act. It is important that your document management platform accommodates easy change management so that regulations and requirements are updated and documents remain compliant.
Business Continuity: In case of any natural disaster or an unexpected power outage, data should be accessible from a secure remote back-up facility to enable business processes to continue. Data should be comprehensively backed up at a secure location that features total redundancy of all online systems, databases, communications, power, form inventories, and print and mail facilities.
Document Integrity: The software and the data processing systems you have should assure 100 percent integrity. Use of barcodes ensures that each page is matched and envelop contents are correct and can embed logic for intelligent insertion and special handling. Output envelope scanning guarantees that every single document that hits the mail stream provides an archive for audit purposes and guarantees all envelopes are tracked so that no run is released without 100 percent verification.
Data forms the basis of any organization and keeping it safe from data breaches can prevent huge losses and other negative impact to the firm. Outsourcing data entry to a reliable vendor ensures safety of data; you can also request other solutions such as data cleansing services that ensures clean and reliable data.
