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Safeguarding Client Data: A Business Responsibility

Data is one of the most critical resources for a modern business. Companies rely on their data for analytics, finance, creation, progress, and success. This means that data is a valuable resource, not just to your business — but also to any cybercriminals lurking.

If you’re not looking after your data carefully, you could fall victim to a cyber attack or face litigation from regulatory non-compliance — especially if you are handling personal sensitive client data. As a business, you are responsible for looking after your data, especially your client’s information. 

In this blog, we’ll discuss why data security is so important, the risks and dangers of irresponsible handling, and ways to ensure your business handles data securely and ethically.

The Importance of Data Security

One of the most important parts of managing a business is ensuring robust and reliable security. In a modern business age, this doesn’t just entail office or building security—it also requires online data security, and failing to keep your data security up-to-date could lead to serious consequences.

As a business, the data you hold digitally is vital. Your company may store documents, analytics, statistics, and more, including classified business secrets, financial information, and personal employee, client, and customer information, all digitally or on the cloud. If this isn’t secure, you risk losing or releasing all this data.

Ensuring your organisation’s data security is up-to-date is crucial in a modern business environment. Your company may be vulnerable to vicious cyberattacks without the correct protocols, software, checks, and more.

Risks and Consequences of Data Breaches

A data breach involves unauthorised individuals accessing confidential, protected information. It has significant, devastating consequences that are incredibly hard to recover from and can happen to businesses of any size.

If your business is involved in a data breach, you have a massive chance of experiencing irreparable damage to your reputation, causing a loss of customers, clients, and overall revenue. You might also experience legal and compliance issues surrounding your leaked data—and if any personal information is gained, this could lead to a loss of privacy or, worse, identity theft.

Your database could also become permanently damaged or corrupted, losing all your business data, files, and information permanently. Data breaches can be fatal to companies, and many data breaches in the past have led to companies closing for good.

It is difficult to repair the damage done to your business after a data breach — which is why it’s vital to ensure that you have the correct data security measures to prevent cyberattacks from occurring.

Legal and Ethical Responsibilities

As an organisation, you have a legal responsibility to handle sensitive data securely. However, it is also vital to handle sensitive data ethically. Businesses that practice data ethics protect themselves from legal issues and their customers’ safety and information.

Here are a few ways you can practice data ethics:

Practical Steps for Data Protection

When monitoring your business security, it is essential to have robust data security protocols and plans in place throughout your entire organisation, from protecting where data is stored to practising safe physical security in the workplace.

A practical step forward for data protection is to analyse your existing technological infrastructure—assess your security protocols, hardware and software, network speeds and connections, and conclude any underlying issues or upgrades that would benefit your business’s data security.

Another critical step for protecting your company’s data is to practice safe security measures in the workplace. One of the most prominent forms of data breaches is phishing attacks. Ensuring your employees are educated on phishing scams, regularly updating their passwords, and using a form of MFA will protect your business.

Role of Managed Service Providers

Managing every aspect of your organisation’s data protection and digital security can be difficult, especially if you require changes and upgrades to your infrastructure that you may not have the in-house resources to cover.

Luckily, Managed Service Providers (MSP) like Aura Technology can help. By working alongside us, you no longer have to worry about security and technology management, maintenance, and day-to-day tasks — our specialists will handle it for you.

Aura Technology can also ensure your infrastructure is up to date, build optimised plans for your company’s needs and objectives, and assist in any extensive technological upgrades, implementations, or migrations you plan for your business.

How We Can Help

Security is a vital consideration for any company. The risk of data breaches and attackers is too significant to ignore, and failing to safeguard your client data can be catastrophic for your business. However, you can easily use these steps to ensure your business has a significant data security strategy.

If you need help securing your business, contact us today. We’re here to help and will ensure that you have everything you need to protect your business long-term.

Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.