Data is one of your most valuable assets, offering insights for making strategic decisions and building stronger customer and partner relationships. However, it can be one of your biggest liabilities if you don’t take the right precautions to keep it secure.

Data breaches can cost companies millions of dollars. They can also damage the brand value, erode confidence and result in regulatory penalties. Data breaches are inevitable. However there are ways to minimize the threat and protect yourself against cybercriminals.

1. User authentication and authorization.

Data security requires authentication and authorization process that is secure to ensure only authorized individuals have access to your data. This can be accomplished by requiring that best business software two or more forms are used to access your data, including something that the user is familiar with (passwords and tokens) as well as something she has (electronics and other hardware) or something they actually have (biometrics such as fingerprints and face recognition).

2. Secure everything

Classified data is among the most sensitive information and its disclosure without authorization could have the most devastating consequences for your business and/or affected individuals. To protect classified data, it should be secured in all times and protected by a decryption key that is only accessible to authorized personnel. Your team should periodically reassess classifications and formulate a plan to manage encryption keys to keep them from being compromised.

3. Reduce non-essential data access.

The majority of employees do not require full access to the information of your company. This decreases the chance of a breach as it reduces the number possible entry points for hackers. It is recommended to restrict access only to the minimum data required to complete the task and also to use the user ID to restrict access to data even if usernames and passwords are stolen.