Excellent security is a keystone in any successful modern business, regardless of size. Whether you’re running a small one-man operation or a multinational corporation, it’s extremely important to invest in good security to keep your business safe and running smoothly. This article will outline a few key tips for improving your security to improve your peace of mind and even provide a productivity boost.

Inventory

Establishing an inventory of all the businesses assets is an excellent way to improve security. By having a clear list of all items being used by employees, especially electronic and other such expensive items, a business can keep a closer eye on those items and also employees can be more easily held accountable for lost assets. This kind of simple tracking can help dissuade possible theft and can even help prevent future incidents.

Access Control

It’s important to utilize some form of access control in regards to your business. Non-employees should not have access to business assets. There are a number of ways to achieve this, ranging from the large, like the security gates Australia uses in its airports to control the flow of only authorized people into secure areas, to the small, like the use of a locked door to your home office. Access Control is even more important than ever in today’s connected world when you account for the rise in electronic storage of sensitive materials. Regardless of how good your password might be, giving an unauthorized individual physical access to your computer is almost a sure guarantee that they can and will get your sensitive data. As such, implement at least a basic form of access control to ensure that only authorized individuals can access business assets.

Training

Employees in any given business should be well trained and knowledgeable about the possible threats that their business might encounter. Ignorance is a powerful tool that can be used by any individual looking to steal company assets. An example of this is the use of social engineering by individuals looking to gain access to sensitive data or systems in a company. For example, an individual can come to your office and claim to be a government inspector there to check that your IT infrastructure is up to legal standards for your business. A well-trained staff should be able to refuse entry to any such individual unless they can provide an established level of proof of their veracity. In this situation, a secretary could be trained to refuse entry to the office any individual that does not have a scheduled appointment unless told directly otherwise by their manager. While it’s possible that the government inspector is real and there is simply a misunderstanding at play here, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Back-ups

While it’s easy to think that security should focus on preventing malicious intrusion and theft of business assets, security should also strive to keep assets safe from anything, including accidental damage. As a result, any successful business has a solid backup system in place to keep company assets secure. A solid starting point for creating an adequate backup is to use the 3-2-1 backup strategy. Simply put, have 3 copies of your data, on at least 2 different devices, with at least 1 device in an off-site location. For example, if you have a document named ‘Tax 2001’, have 3 copies of Tax 2001 saved, two on your computer in different locations and one on an external hard drive, and keep that hard drive in a different physical location and building from your workplace. The 3-2-1 backup strategy is the minimum and an excellent starting point. You should look to invest money in either external hard drives or even cloud storage you trust to help prevent data loss from destroying all your hard work.

Updates

It’s easy to overlook and can occasionally be a pain to keep up with, but ensure that all electronic assets in your business are using the latest versions of software. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, keeping software up to date ensures that your data is protected in the best possible manner from any known exploits. Secondly, software that is up to date typically runs better than older software and running older software could lead to productivity loss. Companies typically tend to issue updates with the best intentions in mind of securing your sensitive data and improving your work experience.

Ultimately, security in any business is an exercise in vigilance and willpower. Once a good security system is established, even the best will fail eventually if not taken care of and constantly updated. Stay vigilant and always take the time to ensure that your security is adequate to prevent a disastrous loss of productivity later down the road. A little time spent today checking your security is much less time spent recovering from a massive security failure later.