How to improve data security and save some money
With all the worry about data security and the risks of data breaches, firms need to have safeguards in place. Here are two ways you can lessen the risk of your data being lost or stolen. These can also make running your IT infrastructure simpler and perhaps even less expensive.
Data storage and cloud backups - If your data is stored and backed up on-site, you may be exposing your business and customer data to an entirely unnecessary vulnerability. On-site data storage and backups expose your business to serious risk.
First, if you are storing data on-site, this means you maintain full responsibility for securing that data against theft, cyber attacks and ransomware. That is quite a responsibility and requires diligence and skill on the part of your IT staff. Data breaches represent a serious liability. You lose the trust of your customers if their data is compromised and you may be liable to penalties for a data breach ( think HIPAA and the new GDPR, both of which carry extensive fines.) Data breaches also represent a bad mark on your brand that cannot be easily polished away. Victims of data theft have long memories.
Second, on-site storage and backups mean that if some disaster happens on-site, your data may be permanently lost, or at least temporarily inaccessible. Neither of these are good options.
Third, onsite backups represent a responsibility for handling backups on a routine basis. Outsourcing that responsibility to a cloud provider eliminates the risk of a failed inhouse backup.
Moving data storage and backups to the cloud means that no matter what happens to your physical location, your data is safe and immediately accessible from anywhere.
SAAS- Software as a Service How does this help manage risk in case something happens? SaaS is a great innovation. You may be used to buying a software program and downloading it to a PC. You may even buy a package deal that gives access to everyone in your organization. However, there is a hitch in this software purchasing model. Those software programs are living in a particular piece of hardware. If that hardware is lost, stolen, inaccessible due to geographical events, or just plain wears out, accessibility to the data contained may be compromised. You buy a new laptop and you have to buy new software access to Word, etc. Short story, your software access is tied to a piece of machinery. SaaS ends that. You buy online access, so it doesn’t matter where you are or what happens to your laptop, desktop, building or office, you can still login and get back to work.