Tag Archives: data protection

5 Data Privacy Mistakes to Avoid

Cybersecurity, Data Backup, How To, Security, , , ,

Data Privacy Mistakes

Data privacy mistakes can set the stage for immense damage to one’s business. An insignificant error can cost you millions of dollars in fines and reparations. It can even put you smack in the middle of stressful lawsuits. And it can even blow up and seriously harm the reputation of your business!

Therefore, the pressure is very high for business owners to avoid these mistakes at all costs. To do that, you first need to know which data privacy mistakes to avoid. That is what we are going to talk about in this post today.

5 Most Common Data Privacy Mistakes and Potential Solutions

The dread of something terrible happening because of a single wrong move can be debilitating to your business. Free yourself from needless worrying by knowing what data privacy mistakes to avoid and planning appropriate contingencies.

Failure to Obtain Consent

Collecting personal data without explicit consent directly violates the General Data Protection Regulation. Every time you ask people for personal data, be sure to include a way for them to either give recorded consent or opt out.

Weak Data Security Practices

With so many advanced data security systems now available, there is no excuse to stick to practices that are way below par. At the very least, be sure to use a reliable encryption method, use updated software, secure your storage systems, and conduct regular security audits.

Data Privacy Mistakes – Ignoring Data Subject Rights

According to the GDPR, it is the right of users to access, correct, or delete data they have submitted for collection. You can honor this right by establishing procedures that let them request access, corrections, or deletion of their information.

Over-Retention of Data: A Risky Data Privacy Mistake

The longer you store collected data, the higher the risk of a data breach. A simple solution is to store data only as long as necessary. Once it is no longer needed, the data must be deleted from your system.

Inadequate Staff Training

Employees are often the weakest link in cybersecurity. This is largely due to the inadequate security training they receive, especially with data privacy. Regular training sessions on privacy laws, data security practices, and data privacy mistakes to avoid will equip your staff with better knowledge and skills to handle data for your business.

Final Thoughts on Data Privacy Mistakes

These are just the most common data privacy mistakes to avoid. To ensure that none of these errors are made, the best move is to hire an MSP to take care of your data security. Now, if, despite all your precautions, your organization still falls victim to a data breach, you must have a recovery strategy ready to roll out immediately. We can help you with this by providing a free Data Breach Response Plan Template for your peace of mind. Download this resource right here, tailor it to align with your cybersecurity needs, and you’ll be ready for the worst attacks.

Navigating GDPR Compliance for Small Businesses

Cybersecurity, Data Backup, Security, Technology, , , ,

For business owners, the primary goal is to make money. This makes perfect sense. Hence they focus on marketing strategies, product development, and other areas that directly impact sales. Other tasks, like data privacy and GDPR compliance for small businesses, end up in the back seat. However, these seemingly less important areas are of the foremost concern, right up there with revenue generation.

GDPR Compliance

One reason GDPR compliance for small businesses doesn’t get the attention it requires is that many business owners lack awareness. There are also many rules that ordinary people don’t know about. One can easily miss a rule and get penalized without knowing what happened. Also, data privacy laws change frequently. In this blog, we will help you navigate the world of GDPR compliance for small businesses with relative ease.

Why Is GDPR Compliance Important for Business?

So why is GDPR compliance so important for business? GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It provides directives on how organizations should deal with personal data. Failure to comply with these regulations can lead to penalties. What’s worrying is that the fines are not small amounts, either. Each year, as much as 4% of the global annual revenue of small businesses goes towards these easily preventable charges. You certainly don’t want to throw away your hard-earned profits just on fines!

More importantly, though, GDPR compliance minimizes the risk of data breaches and other security gaps that can compromise your safety and reputation. By achieving full compliance, you are effectively safeguarding your operations. Ultimately, it’s up to you to ensure that your business meets global data protection standards.

Key Steps to Ensure Compliance for Small Businesses

It seems an overwhelming task at first but the road to complete GDPR compliance doesn’t have to be so bumpy. These key steps will help make the process smoother.

  • Understand the process of data collection. Know which kinds of data to collect, where to store them, and how to use them without violating laws.
  • Always get explicit consent. Making assumptions is a no-no when you’re working with data collection. Make sure individuals give consent before you take their information. You must also provide an opt-out option for those who don’t want to participate.
  • Publish a clear and transparent privacy policy. How you collect, store, and use data must be clearly stated in an updated privacy policy that is easily accessible to everyone.
  • Apply data security measures. A key part of GDPR compliance is the implementation of robust security measures for data protection. Be sure to include encryption, multi-factor authentication, and regular audits.
  • Have a data breach response strategy in place. According to protocol, you must notify affected users and relevant authorities within 72 hours of a breach.

Conclusion

To help you achieve full GDPR compliance for small businesses, we have prepared a Data Breach Response Plan template that you can customize to align with your unique cybersecurity solutions. This resource is free to download and available right here. But what’s even better is to partner with an MSP that can guarantee your compliance, so you don’t have to spend time and effort doing it all yourself.

If you want to learn more about data privacy and compliance and how an MSP can help, just let us know. We’ll set you up for a free appointment at your earliest convenience!

Protecting Your Business in Case of Death

Protecting Your Business
Data Backup, Security, Technology, , , ,

It would be a shame and an unfortunate waste if a business cannot continue operating after the owner’s death. Fortunately, we have ways to circumvent this, beginning with a highly efficient thing called digital estate planning. When protecting your business, this is an effective way to prepare before death.

There are a few scenarios where the business can continue past the owner’s death. For example, we have sole proprietorships and traditional partnerships, where the dissolution automatically happens when the owner dies. But for many other cases, digital estate planning plays a role in ensuring the business will continue running under new management in the coming years.

Why Protecting Your Business & Digital Estate Planning Is Important

The main reason digital estate planning is now a critical element for businesses is that most business transactions and operations are processed digitally. Correspondence, marketing, and sales all happen online. This means that the wealth of a typical business’s assets is now digital. That is why protecting your business digitally is now also crucial.

Now, if the owner dies, and he is the only one with access to these digital assets, the people left in the office will have a huge problem. How can the successors of the business continue running the business when they can’t even log into the accounts in the first place?

As the business owner, when protecting your business it is your job to create a digital estate plan so that in case anything happens to you, or even if you are just temporarily incapacitated or unable to run the business for whatever reason, the person who is going to take your place would have all the data to gain access and to run the business.

How to Create a Digital Estate Plan

It might sound difficult, but creating a digital estate plan is straightforward when protecting your business. It is like making a will but for the digital assets of your business. You will begin by taking an inventory of all your digital assets. Make a list and make sure that everything is included. Anything that is in digital form should be on the list and must be planned for accordingly. This includes documents, databases, images, videos, login information for accounts relevant to the business, and so on.

After completing your list, think carefully about what you want to happen to them. In your digital estate plan, name the person you wish to entrust with each asset. Explicitly state what you want them to do to it, how you want the assets managed, and so on. Each appointee should receive a copy of all the login names and passwords needed to fulfill their responsibility.

Importance of Password Management in Protecting Your Business

This brings us to the crucial aspect of password management in digital estate planning. Turning over a list of passwords to your would-be successor is not enough when protecting your business. You must guarantee these passwords are current. Giving them a list of defunct login information is as good as giving them nothing.

The easiest way to ensure this is to use a password manager: a software application that securely keeps all your login names, passwords, and other sensitive information. Each time you change a password, which should be periodically, update the records accordingly.

Be Ready with a Well-Organized Digital Estate Plan

Having a business, you can pass on to your loved ones is a huge accomplishment. But it is just as important that you should be able to pass it on with no hitches. That is why as early as now, you should already start protecting your business and prepare a digital estate plan that will enable your loved ones to take over just as you wanted, after your death.

To help you make some of these business decisions, we’ve created two helpful downloadable infographics: A Digital Estate Planning Checklist and a Password Cheat Sheet. Pass these two resources around the office so everyone is up to speed on these important topics.

Call us any time you are ready to take the next step!

What is Personal Identifiable Information?

identifiable Information
Cybersecurity, Data Backup, Security, , , , , ,

Personal identifiable information, or PII is a term that is frequently mentioned these days concerning data breaches. It means any information that can find the person to whom the information is connected. With that being said, PII is considered to be confidential and must be treated as such. This information is why companies invest in cutting-edge data protection solutions to keep these details secure. PII is also the target of hackers when they break through a company’s database or network. With access to this private information, they can carry out their malicious activities, such as identity theft, more easily.

What Information Is Considered “PII”?

NIST lists an individual’s name, biometrics, and social security number as their primary personal identifiable information in the US. The NIST list also includes home address, email, passport number, driver’s license, vehicle plate number, date of birth, and more. These are also known as pseudo-identifiers or quasi-identifiers. A person cannot be identified from some of this data, such as the birthdate, because millions of people share the same date. But when put together with other information on the list, they make it clear who the person is. Individually, pseudo-identifiers are not considered PII in the US but they are so in Europe and a few other countries.

Ways to Protect Personal Identifiable Information

PII needs to be kept safe by both the organization that collects and stores it and the person who gave it to the organization and owns it. As such, in the event of a data breach, companies are not solely liable for any damage or loss that might occur. Despite this, it is still popular public opinion that the company must keep clients’ information safe and secure. So if you are a business owner, it would be in the best interest of everyone involved if you took the necessary steps to protect all the PII in your database.

You can easily do this by using a tried-and-tested Data Privacy Framework. Many are readily available, like the PCI DSS, the EU GDPR, and ISO 27000. We recommend a customized data protection framework that meets your data security needs and fits your company’s organizational structure..

Identifiable information: Creating Your Data Privacy Framework

Creating a data privacy system requires a dedicated IT team to build and manage it. Reputable managed services provider can create a solution to protect your data from nosy people. We can help you build a framework that fits your company and protects your sensitive data, from sales transactions to personal information. We will take a very close look at your company’s structure and design a system that will address all your specific needs and goals.

If you are ready to take the step to secure your data and be more protected from hackers, just let us know, and we will be there right away. In the meantime, if you think you have been hacked, here is our step-by-step guide to what you should do. Then call us so we can begin bolstering your defenses against cyberattacks.