At a recent security event, the VP of Gartner Neil MacDonald put the fundamentals of IT security under four headings:
“Information security… is about protecting the confidentiality, the integrity, the authenticity, (and) the availability of information.” Let’s talk about this in terms of your business data security.
1. Data Confidentiality
One of the biggest roles of IT security is protecting sensitive information. In a company’s IT network, confidential data is exchanged between customers, employees, and administration. You should have strong protections in place so only authorized people can access it. Only accounting should be able to see your employees’ bank account information, for example. Any data breach puts personnel and customers at risk of identity theft, which could make you liable for damages.
Cornell University lists these six examples of data your business needs to keep confidential.
Data that can be used to:
1. Uniquely identify people.
2. Pay or reimburse people.
3. Provide employment benefits.
4. Support business-related travel and lodging.
5. Understand the financial status of a person.
6. Fulfill obligations to the government.
2. Data Integrity
Data integrity is a technical term referring to the accuracy and consistency of data over time. A properly maintained and updated IT network will be able to access a file created years ago on Windows 98. All the data on the system can be accessed, no matter the original format.
When network security is suboptimal, your data is at risk. Upgrades, hardware failures, malware attacks, and human error can all cause lost or corrupted files and data.
3. Data Authenticity
Don’t modify software. If a program is changed by a hacker or even a user, it’s no longer guaranteed to work. Software modifications can cause failures due to broken code, and data can be corrupted or lost.
If you modify software you may be in violation of the software’s licensing agreement. If the software manufacturer found out, your business would be legally liable.
4. Data Availability
If your data isn’t available to you 100% of the time, your network security policies aren’t working. However, data availability is more than data integrity. Data availability means that you can access your data no matter what; during peak network traffic, and even in the event of a major disaster.
A solid IT security plan includes Data Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR). Quikteks can protect your data availability with our BDR solution, which virtualizes all of your network’s data at an off-site location. You can access it quickly, even if your office is down.
Wherever you store and manage your data, your business needs to cover data management according to these four IT security categories. Quikteks can help you set up proper data usage, storage management, and a strong security solution. Call us today at (973) 882-4644. We can help.