Data Protection Best Practices

It seems every day a new major data breech hits the news. To prevent such catastrophes from occuring in your organization, take these precautions:

1. Password Protect Your PC
   Password protect your computer to prevent unwanted access. Change your password at least every quarter or every time you want to prevent someone who may know it (i.e. former employee) from using it.
2. Secure Your Email
   Use a spam filter to filter unwanted email. Never send confidential information (i.e. passwords, social security numbers, credit card numbers) via email. Always verify a website's URL before submitting your private info.
3. Safeguard your PC
   Use antivirus and firewall software, and enable Automatic Updates for Windows Security.
4. Protect Your Data Properly
   Never rely on external / flash drives, CDs, DVDs, etc. to protect your mission critical data. They can easily fail, get lost, stolen or damaged. Also, manual backups rarely get done or taken offsite.
5. Choose a Reliable Online Backup Company
   Find a reliable automated, online backup service that encrypts your data and stores it at two geographically separate, mirrored data centers.
6. Store your Password Safely
   Remember, only you have access to your password, and without it you cannot retrieve your data. Write down the password you created during setup, and store it safely in two places.
7. Consider File Retention Strategies
   For longer retention (particularly if required by federal regulatory compliance such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley), create archive files and back them up. For example, create a monthly zip file with the date in the filename.
8. Check Backup Log Files
   Periodically check the log files on your backup account to make sure all your files are backing up properly.