What is the most valuable asset of your company? Is it an ecommerce store, clients’ financial data, supply chain manual, or a social media account with hundreds of thousands of followers?
Every organization relies on digital assets to reach out to customers, boost sales, and streamline business operations. However, it becomes a challenging task to protect your digital assets in the purview of constant cyber-attacks and the latest hacking techniques. In addition, employees who steal important data and sensitive information worsen the situation. What can you do to fight the security challenges faced by your business?
You can adopt the following six ways to protect your company’s digital assets from potential threats.
Understand Your Digital Assets
The first and foremost step towards saving your digital assets starts with properly understanding different types of data and the levels of protection they demand.
Every business owner must know what digital assets they own and where they are located to ensure security at every level. All the information and data related to the company and stored on digital platforms require protection from cyber criminals. Digital assets include the company website, original content like blog, photos, multimedia, client lists, customer data, spreadsheets, and business manuals.
In addition, a company also owns exclusive rights to social media accounts, apps, trademarks, and patents that need protection. These assets are stored in either in-house data management systems or third-party servers such as cloud systems. You must categorize digital assets into different groups so that each category receives the due protection it deserves.
Get Digital Estate Plan
You must be familiar with traditional estate planning, but adding the “digital” makes all the difference. If, at this point, you are wondering what is digital estate planning? And how can it help you save your digital assets? Let us explain.
Digital estate planning primarily focuses on everything that is online and ensures safe transfer to the chosen party. For instance, you can store all your digital assets in a safe place with a password manager. It can include anything from cloud-based storage to hard drives to digital banking accounts to cryptocurrencies. You can choose any trustworthy person or your team to inherit the digital assets of the company with the help of digital estate planning. In addition, you can decide what you want to put in a digital estate and who can access what.
In the wake of ever-increasing issues of cyber security, every company needs to have a digital estate plan to safeguard its online assets.
Apply Two Factor Authentication
Two Factor Authentication (2FA) is a reliable method that adds an extra protective layer to at-risk systems and cloud-based platforms. You come across various types of two-factor authentication when login into password-sensitive systems. Voice and SMS-based authentication require you to add a cell phone number for receiving OTP (One time password). This type is common for authenticating financial transactions across banking channels.
Push Notification authentication is enabled on Google and Gmail that lets you accept or reject an access request with a one-time tap. Two-factor authentication through a soft token or one-time passcode is another method that businesses commonly use. You can install this 2FA on any soft token-supported cloud system through an app. However, you must have high-speed internet access to use 2FA as it allows users to enter code within one minute and with three attempts only.
Devise A Monitoring System
Your ability to identify the potential threats based on the past patterns and latest security trends is crucial in protecting your digital assets. A 24/7 monitoring system and threat detection software can empower your company to take immediate action against emerging vulnerabilities. Moreover, you must implement the latest security features in the company to ensure data compliance with up-to-date standards. New cyber threats emerge daily and can surpass your outdated network security and software firmware.
Cybersecurity brings unique challenges to every organization, and no single solution fits all. Your cybersecurity team must adopt a robust approach to upgrading software and data management systems. In addition, when your IT team is competent enough to implement security features according to the database nature, staff face less pressure to meet the security needs.
Organize Hands-On Training For Employees
The education and training of staff related to cyberspace have become inevitable for industries to survive and thrive in this digital age. Every company must convey the latest data safety policies to their employees, especially those in data-sensitive departments. For example, customer support staff, sales and marketing, IT, and research and innovation deal with sensitive data in general.
Educating your staff can be as simple as avoiding public internet connections or updating software regularly to bug off virus attacks. You can arrange hands-on employee training and inform them about digital safety trends. Well-informed and educated staff can play a major role in adopting and practicing the best cybersecurity measures. Furthermore, allow a limited number of employees to access the applications and digital assets of the company. Not everyone needs to have full access to perform their job. You must customize the security settings to fit the needs of the company.
Avail Cyber Insurance
Many businesses that struggle to protect their digital assets lack information about cyber insurance. It is one of the convenient ways to get on the right track and secure your digital assets from online risks and threats.
Cyber insurance is the best way to pay your expenses in case of network failure, privacy, and media liability. It not only covers the costs of forensics and investigation but also provides compensation for business loss and recovery of customers’ data, including financial information, health records, and social security numbers after a cyber-attack. Furthermore, cyber insurance helps maintain the company’s reputation by notifying the customers and facilitating lawsuits. In short, cyber insurance makes all the difference to standing up again after a security crisis in your firm. Be mindful while reading the fine print and know what you’re signing for.
Final Thoughts
With the rise of cyber security threats, protecting digital assets has become a matter of concern and priority for companies. However, you don’t need to be a tech geek to secure your digital assets. Fortunately, you can safeguard your company’s valuable resources with the help of the digital estate plan and meet the demands of your ever-growing digital data.
