Data is the lifeblood go right here of every business, allowing it to run efficiently and profitably. However, businesses must balance the need for available and abundant data with the need to ensure that customer data is kept safe and secure. The latter point is driven by the new and constantly evolving privacy laws like Europe’s GDPR and California’s CCPA as well as long-standing laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Securities and Exchange Commission regulations that protect the financial information of shareholders as well as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for data about consumer payments.

To ensure data protection the first step is to organize all your data and safeguard it. This involves identifying, categorizing and determining the access levels for data according to its sensitiveness. It is important to implement policies that protect data, regardless of whether it’s in transit or in its rest. Using a software solution to detect and monitor the activities of your files and detect anomalous patterns will help you spot suspicious activity, and swiftly identify and minimize vulnerabilities that could be a result of outdated or incompatible software.

A comprehensive plan for recovery and backup that includes physical storage media is crucial. Not to be left out it is crucial to implement effective measures of security, ranging from background checks for prospective hires to periodic training sessions for existing employees, as well as terminating employees who no longer require access to critical systems. It is also essential to create a disaster recovery plan to ensure that your data is secure in the event of a natural or human-caused catastrophe.