With staff heading back into physical office spaces, it’s as important a time as ever to safeguard your company’s sensitive data through data encryption. Protecting your information is more crucial than ever because of the risk of cybersecurity and ransomware attacks.
Data encryption is just another defense mechanism offered by M.I.T Consulting to prevent hacks from happening and protect your business assets. We provide reliable on-site technical and IT support in the GTA and parts of Ontario. We’ll help prepare your personalized IT strategy by explaining why it’s so important to encrypt your data (even if you’re on a private network) and the best practices of doing so. We’ll also go over how our tech experts make the process easy and manageable for your business.
Encrypt Your Data Even When You Have a Private Network
Data encryption offers more protection for businesses running on a private network, significantly reducing the risk of data breaches and losses. It converts your important data into a code that can only be deciphered by employees who have a hidden key (or decryption key) or password. Therefore, only the people you trust can have access to the data because it changes it from its original format to a newer one.
A simple example of data encryption in practice involves replacing every letter in a word with the letter that follows in the alphabet. So the word “dog” will become “eph.” Data is regularly accessed and transferred on both public and private networks, so it’s crucial to protect it for your business to avoid major cybersecurity incidents. Encrypted data will often need to be decrypted and processed by application devices such as firewalls, laid balancer, SSL terminators, firewalls, and application backends.
Since public and private networks rely on Internet Service Providers (ISPs), there is still some risk of compromising your data, even if your cybersecurity is ironclad. A lot of servers with incorrect HTTPS configurations can endanger transferred data if not handled properly. It can especially be exposed to interception if the encrypted data doesn’t reach the application backend.
Despite the risks, we recognize that hackers will always find ways to breach your cybersecurity and expose your sensitive information. Devices such as routers, firewalls, and anti-spam filters can work well in conjunction with data enceptions, but there will always be hackers looking for ways to invade and manipulate your security. Let’s go over some best practices of data encryption to ensure this doesn’t happen.
What Are Some Of The Best Practices To Encrypt Data?
The first thing you should consider is keeping your encryption key secure at all costs. This should be fairly obvious to people in charge of your IT systems, but it can be easy to leave mistakes that allow unauthorized access to your data. An example of this in action would be if someone left their encryption key in an unencrypted file on your computer. There’s a good chance someone will discover it and compromise your information. To avoid this, separate the keys or passwords from the data, separate duties and set access limits to users, and try rotating your keys on a consistent schedule.
Another straightforward practice to implement is ensuring all types of sensitive data you have are encrypted, no matter where they’re stored or who has access to them. In the past, many large companies fell victim to security breaches simply because their important data was encrypted and exposed for hackers to steal. By encrypting your data and reinforcing your cybersecurity, you make it harder for people to compromise your sensitive information.
Lastly, you should also regularly assess the performance of your data encryption. You and someone from your IT team should make sure the encryption is effective and efficient to your resources and that your data is unreadable to unauthorized personnel. If the process takes up too much time or CPU memory to encrypt, you can consider switching to another algorithm or modifying the settings with our tech support team.
M.I.T. Consulting Tech Experts Make The Process Easy And Manageable!
Our tech experts recognize how fast-paced and adaptive the IT field is and will seek to understand your business and treat it as their own. Data encryption support is one of many IT support services we offer for businesses looking for easy ways to manage their PCs and protect their data. We’ve developed and used industry-tailored solutions to help you maximize your company’s efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Protect your important information with data encryption by contacting M.I.T Consulting today!
