• Cat-like Typing

Data Safety 101

Now more so than ever before do we live in a data driven society.  There is a large focus on collecting and transforming data.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re a large corporation maintaining information on thousands of customers or a small business running your own data driven website.  Data is what drives your business.

While this is a wonderful thing that gives us a lot of freedom and broadens our capabilities, it also can also make us highly vulnerable.  Data loss and data theft can devastate companies and bring strong businesses to their knees.  Even worse, it can impact the innocent as well.  Legal backlash is also commonplace in some cases.

What if something bad happened to your data?  You wake up tomorrow and all the payroll information in your company is gone.  Someone in the company that handles it lost a laptop with sensitive information and someone hacked their system with a couple days.  Your information and that of your coworkers is all in the hands of some very unpleasant people.  How long will they have it?  Will someone be withdrawing money from your bank account tomorrow?  Will you go to buy lunch for your significant other to have your credit card rejected and find yourself the unfortunate victim of identity theft?

The consequences of data theft are scary indeed, but one should not live in fear of it.  The best way to combat fear is with knowledge and the first step to peace of mind is to understand what steps those with your data are taking to preserve it.  For example,  I deal with a great many passwords daily.  Softwyre clients put their faith in us and in me with the understanding that measures are being taken to protect their data.

Just as an example, I’ve become quite fond of a little program called Truecrypt.  This program is used to encrypt a volume of data in which you can store sensitive files, information, and more.  I make it a point to encrypt sensitive information that comes my way, specifically passwords, such that even were I lose my work machines or have them stolen, your information would be safe.  This is just one measure I take to protect myself and all the people I work with and for from a great many rather unpleasant possibilities.

So what about you?  What steps are you taking or, rather, what steps are those with your data taking to protect it?  If you can’t answer this very simple question, then you should probably fix that.