What is data security?
Data security involves actively protecting data from unauthorised access and corruption throughout its lifecycle. For businesses, data security is crucial, as breaches can lead to catastrophic consequences if personal data is compromised. The immediate costs are significant, but the long-term impact can be even greater, with potential revenue loss due to a damaged reputation.
Why is data security important for businesses?
UK law mandates the protection of data usage therefore stored digital business information including; financial data, payment details, and contact information for staff and customers needs to be protected.
As well as this, there are many benefits of data security for your business including:
- Helping to reduce the number of data breaches your business can suffer
- Helping to prevent loss of revenue
- Helping to protect customer’s privacy
- Supports your business’s code of ethics
- Gives you a competitive advantage over competitors
What is data security management?
Data security management is the effective oversight and management of a business’s data to ensure the data is not accessed or corrupted by unauthorised users. A data security management plan includes planning, implementation of the plan, and verification and updating of the plan’s components.
What is data security in cloud computing?
The convenience of anytime, anywhere data availability makes the cloud a compelling alternative to a traditional data centre. Moving data to the cloud can also control costs, improve data redundancy and reduce shadow IT to improve data governance.
Although cloud-based platforms can make collaboration and remote working easier, it can also create vulnerabilities as it increased the internet facing “surface area” of your organisations infrastructure which makes it easier for compromised credentials to be exploited. This is why data security should be a key part of migrating to the cloud.
Protecting data in the cloud can be similar to protecting data within a traditional data centre. Authentication and identity, access control, encryption, secure deletion, data integrity checking, and data masking are all data protection methods that have applicability in cloud computing.
Data integrity checking is a crucial component of cloud data security, which prevents unauthorised modification or deletion, and ensures that data remains as it was when originally uploaded.
Key causes of data breaches:
- Weak or stolen credentials – Basic MFA controls and user training on appropriate passwords are recommended. A multi-factor authentication tool would have prevented 99.9% of breaches Microsoft saw in 2019.
- Application vulnerabilities – Keep software, especially servers connected to the internet and users PCs, up-to-date. The recent flaw identified in Exchange server patched in March 2021 allowed anonymous connections to an Exchange server to download mailboxes and run commands remotely.
- Malware – Ensure all devices are running an AntiVirus solution to stop any unauthorised, malicious activity.
- Human error – By providing regular User-Awareness Training sessions, your staff can stay aware of sophisticated threats.
- Lost hardware devices – Encryption tools such as Bitlocker gives you peace of mind that data is protected on portable devices like laptops and phones if your device is ever lost or stolen
Why CT for data security?
Here at CT, maintaining customer trust is a core priority. With the rise of cyber attacks, any breach can cause significant damage. By providing resilient cloud backup services, we can protect your data against attacks such as ransomware, and we can assure you that your data is safe in our hands. Highlights of our data security services include:
- Specialists in design, supply, installation and maintenance of backup solutions
- Technical support by Veeam certified engineers
- Data is stored in secure datacentres that comply with ISO 27001, with 24/7 management
- We are Veeam Platinum Partner and winner of the Veeam Cloud Service Provider Partner of Year 2022
- We support many healthcare organisation in obtaining the Data Security Protection Toolkit to meet NHS security standards
