Data Security

Data security are measures put in place to protect your information asset.

There are mainly two ways of protecting any resource, including information. They are:

a) Control the paths by which access to the resource is gained

b) Safeguard the resource itself

It is a common knowledge that limiting the access paths can be achieved on any stand alone computer e.g laptop or desktop and on the internal networks but the same cannot be said of the internet. The only option that is available to any resource accessible via the internet is to safeguard the resource itself.

Why securing your data?

If you have been a victim of identity theft or if you know what level of embarassment that even companies that have their system broken into, face. Not only that, but even the attendant legal liabilities that result from accompanies that experience privacy breach of their customers information assets, that is, the legal liabilities as a result of the customers personal information that got leaked to hackers.

You will then agree with me that data security is an important portion of information security controls put in place by individuals and organisations alike in order to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information in their custody.

Methods for securing your data

1) Maintain proper access control – change the default password of any vendor access control software immediately. These can be achived by:-

i) Change password often

ii) Restrict access to password

2) Encrypt sensitive data (see data encryption)

3) Maintain adequate back up policy and ensure full compliance as is being demostrated below (a back-up of information assets on the servers in progress. The servers are in a rack) 4) Install an effective virus protection software

5) Install a good firewall

6) Delete any sensitive information from the Web Server, sensitive customer data, such as address, credit card information and health information, should never remain on the Web Server. Device an automated system to periodically copy any data stored on your web server to a dedicated machine located on your premises and then delete the data on the Web Server.

7) Always send sensitive information securely. Although the chances of a hacker intercepting data while it’s being transmitted are very low, it is better to play safe. You can protect your customers sensitive information by providing a connection between your customer’s browser and your server. That’s where the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and IPSec come in handy.

8) When no longer needed, delete data securely from where it is stored. There are some organizations that specialise in this area.

From the above, it is clear that “Data Encryption” is just one of the ways to protect your data.