3 Tips to Keeping Your Business Data Secure

Whether you’re building furniture or selling insurance, starting a company is no easy task. Things like ensuring invoices are paid, getting your business marketed, and more, are all part of the equation - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.However, something that many entrepreneurs don’t think about is digital security. Ensuring your customer data is protected, as well as any designs or private information is critical to business success, but too often overlooked.So how can you go about securing your data from hackers, or when you lose your laptop? Here are three actionable steps you can all take to ensure better digital security.

1: Have a Robust Backup Plan

This sounds obvious – but something that most people don’t think about is having a backup plan when your data is compromised. There’s two primary ways to do this: online and offline. Offline, physical backups are great and ensure total privacy from anything you want to keep safe. The downside, however, is that, unless you have multiple backup devices, if one fails, you lose everything stored on it.Online backups are a good option for those of us who don’t have time to sit down and manually back-up our data to a physical device. Online backups tend to work in the background whilst your devices are on, saving you time. That said, there are downsides to them. Online backup sites can be breached and user data can be leaked. So, for data that needs to stay 100% private, keep it on a physical backup device. For everything else, look to online backup solutions.

2: Digital security

Implementing anti-virus software is a task often neglected despite its importance. New types of malware, like ransomware are a growing problem for both consumers and businesses alike so getting protected is critical to sustaining your business.If you’re looking to protect your devices and data, be sure to check independent reviews, there’s plenty to choose from including some free ones! There’s no excuse for not getting protected.

3: Software updates

Yes, we know how annoying software updates can be, but they’re inordinately helpful when it comes to things such as bug fixes, security updates and numerous other quality of life changes. Be sure to get your computers and mobile devices updated as soon as you can.Though it’s easy for entrepreneurs to focus solely on their direct business needs, time and attention needs to be paid to digital security – online security is one of those things that people tend to ignore, until it’s too late. So, make sure you take time out of your busy schedule to implement these three steps.