Data protection is a vague term that I've seen being thrown about. I've observed it being used in reference to data backup software, security software, network security devices, and well really to all sorts of software and hardware platforms and devices. I've come to the conclusion that data protection is some bit of all of these things and ultimately is about three factors: protection from loss, protection against leak, and the ability to ensure the data can be trusted.
Data loss is perhaps the most fiscally costly, and best known portion of data protection. It is here that you have your nightmare scenarios about all the customer data being gone, and your IT staff is rung up in the middle of the night to rush around to save what they can. These days most are conducting some form of data backup to cover themselves here, and the wiser of us are doing so to off site locations. Obviously this one is something that every organization should have covered at the minimum, though if you aren't sure this is taken care of go ahead and take a look at this post that kicks off a series on backup solutions, and this one which is a webinar about backup solutions.
Data leak is perhaps equally dangerous, though not as often thought about. This area of data protection involves the act of a malicious party gaining access to your sensitive information for some sort of nefarious purpose. A leak can harm not only those of whom the data belongs to or references, but also the reputation of the organization that has been breached.
The risks of leak are present in three stages, transmission, storage, and actions by the internal users themselves. It is important then that all transmitted communications have some form of encryption enabled, be they emails, backups, or other web transactions between customers or internal users. Sending anything across in plain text is just asking for a breach. These days most sites and services provide this, and just about every email service be it hosted or self hosted is capable of some level of protection here. Encryption of stored data is also rather important, and is increasingly so for those with laptops on the road. I can say that I've had my personal information exposed to the world on two occasions due to a laptop being stolen. It's a frustrating circumstance, and can cause all sorts of havoc for a business. It's important to do some for of encryption on your laptops, and its easy with the free solutions out there (like truecrypt).
Trust is important as well. When you are backing something up, or interacting with a web service how can you be assured that you are accessing data that is without malicious content. There are solutions that do this in some sort of piecemeal format be it scanning your computer to make sure it's up to date, or doing general scans to ensure OS integrity, but I'm not aware of a true comprehensive point to point solution. When interacting with questionable web services I might suggest running some sort of sandbox utility, such as that offered by avast, or sandboxie.
Data loss is perhaps the most fiscally costly, and best known portion of data protection. It is here that you have your nightmare scenarios about all the customer data being gone, and your IT staff is rung up in the middle of the night to rush around to save what they can. These days most are conducting some form of data backup to cover themselves here, and the wiser of us are doing so to off site locations. Obviously this one is something that every organization should have covered at the minimum, though if you aren't sure this is taken care of go ahead and take a look at this post that kicks off a series on backup solutions, and this one which is a webinar about backup solutions.
Data leak is perhaps equally dangerous, though not as often thought about. This area of data protection involves the act of a malicious party gaining access to your sensitive information for some sort of nefarious purpose. A leak can harm not only those of whom the data belongs to or references, but also the reputation of the organization that has been breached.
The risks of leak are present in three stages, transmission, storage, and actions by the internal users themselves. It is important then that all transmitted communications have some form of encryption enabled, be they emails, backups, or other web transactions between customers or internal users. Sending anything across in plain text is just asking for a breach. These days most sites and services provide this, and just about every email service be it hosted or self hosted is capable of some level of protection here. Encryption of stored data is also rather important, and is increasingly so for those with laptops on the road. I can say that I've had my personal information exposed to the world on two occasions due to a laptop being stolen. It's a frustrating circumstance, and can cause all sorts of havoc for a business. It's important to do some for of encryption on your laptops, and its easy with the free solutions out there (like truecrypt).
Trust is important as well. When you are backing something up, or interacting with a web service how can you be assured that you are accessing data that is without malicious content. There are solutions that do this in some sort of piecemeal format be it scanning your computer to make sure it's up to date, or doing general scans to ensure OS integrity, but I'm not aware of a true comprehensive point to point solution. When interacting with questionable web services I might suggest running some sort of sandbox utility, such as that offered by avast, or sandboxie.
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