Top 5: best practices for ensuring data confidentiality

Top 5: best practices for ensuring data confidentiality

“Secret is the soul of the business”: the phrase is already old, but it still makes sense. In today’s business world, where IT threats are at every corner, protecting your business data is essential to ensure that your competitors do not find out what you are planning and also to protect sensitive business data. All companies are aware that it is necessary to protect the data. However, not all implement strategies to effectively protect them. In today’s article, we cover the 5 most important practices to ensure data confidentiality.

Control access to information

It is very important that each employee has access only to the information he needs to fulfill his duties. In this way, those in charge of IT will know who has access to what and it will be easier to perceive who was the cause of an eventual leak of information. It is also important that there are confidentiality agreements, so that the employee will feel more involved in protecting the company’s information.

Necessary training for employees

Information security policies should not be imposed by managers without an explanation, because the natural reaction is not to feel committed to the obligation to comply with the orders. All employees should be aware of the importance of keeping the data under protection. It is essential to encourage communication between teams and make information security a priority of their day-to-day.

Scanning of documents

In the past, companies worked with paper documents that were subject to time and natural accidents. Nowadays, companies don’t need to work in this way. Scanning allows documents to be kept confidential, always available, and information is very difficult to lose. Companies thus gain organizational efficiency, which provides a more solid basis for making important decisions.

Reducing the use of storage devices

The use of pen drives and external disks is a major security threat as there is a high risk of passing viruses to the company‘s machines and also of information being lost between one device and another. Thus, it is advisable that companies use a storage solution in the Cloud, because this way all employees will have access to information from anywhere in the World and from any device. There are constant backups in the Cloud services and it’s also a very important factor to guarantee information security.

Data Masking

Tools like Datapeers help companies mask their data. Masking confidential data is an essential component of a data security plan. Datapeers reduces the risk of data breach by replacing sensitive data with fictitious but realistic data. Masked data maintains referential integrity and is statistically defined, allowing testing, analysis, and business processes. The primary use of masked data is in non-production environments, including test and development environments.