Learning how to keep data safe and secure can be crucial for business. Companies of all sizes rely on computers and their applications to help them do their job. In order to protect the information these businesses take countless measures to keep them in running order. However, by simply following a few basic steps any laptop or PC can be at risk for loss or damage.
The most important step to learning how to keep data safe and secure is to never store confidential or sensitive information on the same system as unsecured material. Whether your network is secured with firewalls or just a simple password and userid system, keeping the wrong things on the same machine as sensitive files could cause serious problems. One common way that sensitive information is lost is through a computer crashing. By simply putting off the maintenance for a few days and not using it while on a break, a hard drive will inevitably become full and unusable. Before long this will leave you without all of your work and will be an embarrassing situation.
Another way to make sure your information is kept safe and secure is to never store it on a disk that you’re not ready to lose. Even if you think you’ve emptied your recycle bin, don’t assume this is a permanent storage solution. If you need to store information off-site, don’t use shared hosting servers with other companies. This will leave you vulnerable if your information is compromised.
If you’re on a shared server, you will want to change the password every so often. It’s vital that someone else doesn’t get access to the sensitive data on your server. In order to make sure that no one takes this route to steal your data, you will need to set up and maintain a unique username and password for your servers. You can’t rely on software to help you generate these usernames and passwords. You have to do this yourself by using a short, unique series of numbers and letters. Once you know you’ve set up the username and password correctly, you’ll find that there are few if any problems when trying to access your data.
One of the best ways to keep data safe and secure are to avoid using it online in the first place. Don’t ever click on a link in an email or access files from a site you didn’t recognize. Don’t share your passwords or user names with anyone; it won’t help you when you do need to recover them. If you must give out this information, use strong passwords that cannot be easily guessed.
You should also make it a point to set up a new account for any data you want to save over the long run. This is particularly important when you’re moving from a traditional computer to a laptop, as you will need to store those important documents on a laptop and not leave it sitting on a desktop where it’s easy for a burglar to get your information.