Technology continues to push various industries forward and give everyday people access to new powerful tools that can affect multiple aspects of everyday life. Many people focus on what technology can do and the power it offers, but there is an underside to technology that is far less friendly to everyday users. Most people know someone who has fallen victim to the dark side of technology, whether that takes the form of downloaded malware, ransomware, data breaches, or any other type of cybersecurity issue. For individual users, a cybersecurity issue could cost them bank account information, actual money, or even an entire computer as some viruses will ruin a computer once infected.
While it is awful when anyone is the victim of a cybersecurity attack, businesses have a lot more to lose, and an attack could affect far more people than just the one person who was compromised. When a business database is compromised, the nefarious attackers could get all the customer data, infect company servers with a virus, and cause other damages that could be impossible to fix. It is a much better idea to put protections in place before a cyberattack rears its ugly head. Cybersecurity may be a bit boring as no one wants to spend time protecting against an event that might never happen. Proper cybersecurity is a vital part that anyone running a business should know is a non-optional part of digital business.
What Does Cybersecurity Entail
Cybersecurity can conjure the idea of an IT professional pouring over lines of code to keep your devices and network safe, but cybersecurity entails many different elements that work together to keep your work database safe. There is no single way to practice good cybersecurity as you must defend your network from many different angles. Protective software is essential, but it is not the only method you need to keep your important data safe from outside eyes.
All company computers should have an antivirus program on them, and many programs offer business-wide licenses so everyone can have the same level of protection. When it comes to protecting your network and database, you should use a more specialized software like Citrix Cloud that can also connect to other server or network programs without gumming up the process.
Software is only part of a comprehensive security plan as you must also physically protect your database. If you house your server and database in your office, those computers must be securely locked away so only permitted people can access the machines. If you have your essential computers out in the open, anyone can walk up and plug in a drive with any sort of malicious code. Even if your employees and visitors are trustworthy, it is best practice to limit who can access your important computers. You should go a step further and have unique logins for your computers so if something goes wrong, you can then check the logs and see who the last person to access the system was to make troubleshooting take less time.
Best Practices For Just In Case
Following the best cybersecurity practices will keep your business and database as safe as possible, but it will never be possible to make your database 100% secure. You can have all the proper cybersecurity protections in place, and it is still a good idea to have some backups just in case. Keep different versions of your database stored in a backup server, so you have another copy of your data in case something happens to your primary server and live database. If you use a general mass storage server or service, ensure that those important files are protected and have backups in case local copies are destroyed.
Many businesses feel that collecting as much information for the database as possible is always the best course of action, but it can be dangerous for your customers. If your business hoards all the data it ever collects, any data breach could affect far more innocent people than needed. Rather than holding onto every bit of data, it is better for you and your customers if you routinely clean out old data you no longer need. If customers have unsubscribed, not ordered in a certain amount of time, or the contact information is no longer valid, it is time to clean out the data to free up space and protect your other customers in the event of a data breach.
