Companies need to develop formal plans in order to protect valuable data and secure desktop and mobile devices. This means, firms require formal protocols for data recovery to retrieve information easily and quickly when things go wrong, like when natural disaster strikes.
Cloud Limitations
Despite improving reliability and decreasing costs, companies should not use only cloud storage option for securing data. Instead, they should have both offsite and local backups for maximum protection. Access to data in the cloud is always dependent on Internet connection, but during Internet outage, it is easy to access data quickly.
While data protection practises vary from company to company, the best practises remain universal:
1/ Develop Plans
Before choosing the best data protection practises, firms must understand the significance of creating a formal plan. If there is an established written disaster recovery plan, then employees can get detailed instructions regarding the management of data. Moreover, the written plan can remind the employees to treat company data as a critical asset of the organisation. Planning helps in discovering new data sets that were not found before, giving additional insight into the nature of the company data.
2/ Handle Devices with Extreme Care
Hard drives are sensitive; therefore, treat these devices with care, avoiding exposure to liquids and extreme heat. SD cards are excessively used to store videos and photos. Firms should treat these cards carefully as they are very sensitive as even simple static charges could affect these devices.
3/ Follow Regulatory and Legal Regulations
Make certain that company’s plan is cross-checked with regulatory and legal requirements. To protect information and to save the firm from lawsuits and fines, it is necessary to exceed these regulatory requirements.
4/ Set Up Various Metrics
When tools for data protection are selected, firms need to make sure that they are working appropriately. Metrics help you identify any policy violations, employees are trained adequately, and all data is encrypted at all levels.
5/ Restrict Access
Employees have access to valuable data, so there must be some established access controls to avoid mismanagement and chances of theft. It is unfair and risky to give complete access to one employee. Make certain that there are a number of staff members who have access to data. Moreover, there must be some plans that can work when some employees leave the company.
In Part II, we will discuss additional best data protection practices, like central data management, the roll of employees in data recovery, testing DR plans, and more.
