Is Your Data Secure?

Is Your Data Secure?

If you think your data is secure, read on to see if you are doing all you can to protect it.  Any business, in in any industry that keeps electronic records should be concerned with the safety of their electronic files.  Hacking has become a profitable business for criminals, making it more important than ever to safeguard yourself.

Here are several quick and easy steps you can take to bolster your resistance to an attack.

1. The first is simple, make sure your workstations go to “sleep” when inactive for more than a few minutes.
2. Clean your desk at the end of the day. Put all files in a locked cabinet or file room.
3. If you offer Wi-Fi to your clients, consider using a second network just for them. Keep the network used for your workstations separate and protect it with a password.
4. Back up your files regularly! This is good practice to safeguard against data loss from other sources, too.
5. Do you work from home? Make sure laptops and files are secured whenever they are out of the office.
6. Do you send sensitive data via email? Email can be accessed by hackers before arriving at its destination, so consider what you are sending. 
7. Review your security standards at least annually and make any necessary improvements.
8. Finally, we all should be checking our personal and business credit reports for signs of trouble, or mistakes that need correcting at least annually.

Honorine M. Campisi, CPA