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5 Ways to Protect & Secure Your Clients’ Information

Hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated day by day. According to a new cybersecurity risk assessment model published by Juniper Networks & RAND Corporation, the cost of data breaches as well as cybercrime is expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2019. So if you have customers, it is important for you to take proactive efforts in order to prevent hacking fraud. If you fail to do so, hackers can use your clients’ information such as name, address, employee identification number, credit card information & social security numbers to create & use fake identities.

Always remember that protecting clients’ valuable data is not only good business, it is the law. FCRA or The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act allows for significant company fines for organizations that fail to protect client information.

“Protecting your customer’s personal data against mishandling needs to be a top priority of every business that collects customer information. Your customer needs to trust that their private, personal information is safe with your business before they can trust doing business with you”, said Carrie Hunt, the president & CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

Lack of trust on the part of clients & customers can also do irreparable damage to your business’ reputation. In some cases, it can also close down a business permanently.

So taking steps to keep your clients’ valuable data protected is highly important. But how will you do that?

Here are some easy steps you can take in order to protect your clients’ data.

Employee access

It is highly important to put limits on employee access to clients’ information. Computers as well as servers with password protection will ensure this. However, you need to change your passwords as well as access rights when an employee leaves your company – particularly if data is stored in the cloud, so that any disgruntled ex-employees cannot access, delete or steal your clients’ data. Also, make sure your passwords are difficult to guess, incorporating symbols as well as numbers.

Security software

Remember, hackers are constantly on the search for easy targets. They are continually trying to find new ways of accessing information. However, if you have multi-layered security software in place, it will be difficult as well as more time-consuming for hackers to reach sensitive data. Firewalls as well as anti-virus protection on all devices that are used by your company will help with this. Also, you should employ encryption protocols in order to make it difficult for hackers to view the data if they breach your security. Encryption software can make sensitive data unreadable to anybody without the decryption password.

Updates

According to Kaspersky, over 200,000 new malicious programs are detected as well as blocked by their software every day. By this, you can get an idea of the fast-moving nature of malware. It is therefore highly important that not only security software, but also OS or operating systems, are updated on a regular basis in order to protect against the most recent malware. This goes for all devices – laptops, desktops, tablets as well as smartphones.

Remote wiping

Companies today are moving towards using mobile devices as part of their daily activities & this presents a wide range of risks. Hence having a remote wiping software is highly necessary in order to remotely wipe valuable data from the mobile devices if they are stole or lost. Apple provides its users a remote wipe function as standard as well as Google provides a similar type of solution through the Google Apps Device Policy app.

Choosing a reliable cloud provider

If you store your clients’ data on the cloud, please make sure that you choose a secure as well as reputable solution. Apple & Google offer leading security for their cloud solutions & also, you will be able to purchase more storage if necessary. And if you prefer keeping your data on your own private servers, please choose a reputed hosting provider.

In a nutshell

Always view your clients’ information as your business asset. There are many hackers out there working hard to find new ways to access your clients’ valuable information. Hence, you should take all necessary steps to protect what is yours.

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