Do you have a plan to protect your important data?
These days the people behind scams and spam are getting a lot more inventive. The whole idea behind these is to get access to your money and more importantly your private data.
Protecting your important data is considered part of continuity planning. That is being prepared to recover from any problems.
Here are some steps you can follow from business.govt.nz:
- Identify everything that holds vital data. This is the information, records and systems that you can’t do without, or would be most damaging if lost.
- Make protecting vital data a priority. Put extra security measures in place to protect sensitive data from different kinds of threats. This might be customer details, confidential agreements, financial records and any trade secrets or other intellectual property.
- Plan ahead for different scenarios. Map out a step-by-step approach of what to do if important data is lost, breached or hacked. You will be able to respond quickly — and have a better chance of minimising any negative impacts. Don’t just think about it. Write it down.
- Make sure staff know what to do. This includes training or check-ins and making sure passwords are protected and updated. [We recommend using password software like 1Password]
- Put your plan into practice. Test different scenarios regularly. Make any changes to your plan if it doesn’t work as expected.
For more information on how to protect your data and a toolkit from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner see their website.
Protect your small business network — CERT NZ
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner also has a step-by-step toolkit on how to plan and respond to data breaches.
Privacy breach guidance — Office of the Privacy Commissioner