Your company’s data security is critical to its viability. Your trade secrets, financial records, and employee records all need protection. Otherwise, you could suffer financial losses and damage to your company’s reputation. Discover the following three ways to keep your company’s data secure.

Train Employees on Data Security Measures

Image via Flickr by VFS Digital Design

Your business’s security measures won’t matter if employees haven’t been trained properly to follow them. Time and again, it has be revealed that the security breaches are often caused by human error. People can be confused by the nature of internet security. The famous 2016 phishing attempt that led to a major hack of the Democratic National Committee was entirely avoidable. Social engineering attacks, like phishing, exploits human nature to steal credentials and enter a network through the front door.

A gentleman who had a law degree from Georgetown University fell victim to a simple hack. His aide made a typo indicating that he should open a phishing email. The person meant to say not to open the email, and the mistake may have influenced the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Both parties needed better training about the importance of precision in data security.

Train your employees to recognize the dangers of phishing emails and teach them how to avoid ransomware attacks and other potential security breaches. This training could make a difference in your company’s overall data security. Employees should also be trained to recognize a legitimate website from an imposter’s malware infected site. Lastly, employees need to be taught to internalize the concept that security is a company-wide responsibility. All it takes is a single employee to expose the most sensitive information to unauthorized individuals.

Hire Hackers to Test Your Security Systems

This solution may sound outlandish when you hear it. In practice, many corporations have discovered that hackers are great security freelancers. Who knows better about the ways to breach your data security infrastructure than a hacker? Even major internet businesses such as Google employ cybercriminals to test the integrity of their infrastructure.

You can take the same approach to your company’s data security. Search for a security expert with proven hacking skills and ask for personal reviews before hiring this individual. Once you have established a level of trust, pay the individual to attempt a hack. After a detailed attempt, the hacker will report back to you on target areas of improvement in your data security system.

Another option that some large tech companies opt for is to try a bug bounty program where professional experts will look for bugs and vulnerabilities within a system in return for a monetary reward.

Add a Cloud Access Security Broker

You’ve spent much money on your IT system’s data security. You also have confidence that the cloud services you use are similarly safe. Both of those statements are true, but the problem is that your data can become exposed once it leaves your servers.

A series of internet protocols connects your internet to the cloud service, but these protocols aren’t as secure as your internal ones. These protocols are also less safer than the ones on cloud servers. Hackers often target this environment between your system and the cloud as a potential infiltration point.

You can add exponentially stronger data security measures to correct this problem by using a cloud access security broker (CASB). A CASB extends your own internal security measures all the way to the cloud server. In other words, you maintain control of your system in the manner you prefer until you pass control to the cloud service. By doing so, you can eliminate potential flaws in your data security.

With so many implications at stake, you must protect your data. The three areas listed above are merely a start toward safeguarding your company’s critical information.