By Wes Wernette
Nobody has to tell you that keeping your business and assets safe is important — yet, if you’re like most companies, you also know there are key security issues easy to overlook. What can you do to protect your business processes? Is there a way to stay on top of potential threats and keep your company safe? To help answer those questions, consider the following list of common office security breaches, along with strategies for preventing them from occurring.
1. Theft or Loss
Whether it’s cash in an office drawer or personal data on an unsecured laptop, when valuables get into the wrong hands, you have trouble. In any office environment, theft or loss is a real threat, so it’s vital that you protect your assets in multiple ways.
Computer media can be placed in a secure data safe where it’s protected from fire, dust, magnetic fields and other harmful factors, not to mention from being stolen or lost. Steel cash drawers and boxes can tuck away money and other valuables in a way that is both convenient and impenetrable. Look for office products like these that will protect your important resources right in the office environment.
2. Insecure Storage or Transmission of Sensitive Data
Most businesses today have to send some sort of secure information between technology devices, whether that’s personal identity information (PII), financial information or something else. Should private information leak to unauthorized users or the public, you have a major catastrophe on your hands.
To protect against this situation, set up your servers to always transmit restricted data securely. Don’t email unencrypted sensitive data. Don’t send traditional mail with social security numbers, full financial numbers or other PII.
3. Hacked or Revealed Passwords
Most people have a story of their personal email or an online account being hacked, usually through their password being discovered or hacked into without their knowledge. On the corporate level, this can be drastically harmful. So protect against hacked passwords by taking preventative measures: use cryptic, hard-to-guess passwords; don’t share passwords with others; require employees to use different passwords with different systems or accounts; and always change from an initial password to a custom, more complicated one. By taking these extra steps, you protect your company from becoming a victim of a security breach.
4. Virus-Infected Computers
When a virus gets into your company computers, you could quickly and easily lose large amounts of sensitive data, not to mention experience costly downtime as a result. Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software on your computer network, and educate your staff members on the importance of not opening unknown attachments or links.
No matter what your business industry, security breaches are frustrating, expensive and time-consuming experiences that harm your company’s profitability over time. The four examples above are only the beginning of potential security issues that can arise — but by being aware of these common threats, you empower yourself to know what to look out for and how to protect yourself. Take the outlined preventative steps to protect your business so you won’t have to worry!
