Maintaining your company’s security needs strong procedures and the right tools to keep your customers and staff’s data safe. However, despite all your hard work, there can still be issues that can jeopardize the integrity of your system and lead to data being lost. It is important to realize that not all the threats to your company’s security come from outside. Recognizing and dealing with these threats is vital to keep your business running.

Unhappy Employees

Some of the most common threats to a business’s data come from those inside the company. If you have someone in the IT department or someone that has access to the data, then they can easily share this information or use it to damage your company. Such threats can be found by using digital forensic services to find login details and track the missing data. It is important to put enough safeguards in place that no one person can access or delete data permanently.

Careless or Untrained Employees

Another reason for data loss is an employee who hasn’t been trained correctly in the ways of protecting data. It can be easy for an employee to accidentally leave their phone or a memory stick in a taxi or on the train. Although mistakes do happen, they are less likely if all your employees undertake training to protect the data they carry with them. The other alternative is to have all the data in the cloud, with employees having to log into the system to obtain the data. That eliminates the need to carry it around with them.

Mobile Devices

If your employees use mobile devices for their work, then you need to ensure that they are adequately protected to prevent data from being lost or stolen. A recent study showed that 68 percent of global organizations had been affected by a mobile security breach in the past 12 months. All of your employees work phones should have a password enabled and also a way for them to be erased and disabled remotely in the event of a breach. By having all your data in the cloud, your employees can access everything remotely and not have to store it on the phone.

Unpatched Network Equipment

If you are using network equipment that is a few years old, it is worth looking to get it updated. Old equipment may not have the security patches for the newer vulnerabilities, and that will mean there is a weak link in your security. You should also make sure that any new equipment is fully updated and maintained to prevent unwanted access. The same updates should also be applied to any other IT equipment that is in the office. If your files are uploaded to the cloud, make sure you have the data security and threat protection software such as FortiGate (you can check https://www.fortinet.com/products/cloud-access-security-broker to learn more). Having a stable security system is one of the reasons many companies still use older operating systems.

By trying to identify potential issues and put systems in place to prevent breaches, you can minimize the threat of data loss and protect your customer’s personal information.