According to research from tech giant IBM, global devices generate around 2.5 billion gigabytes (GB) of data every day. It is reported that about 70% of business people have experienced (or will experience) data loss due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses, malware, ransomware, hacking, fire or some other disaster. A third of all these data losses can be attributed to breaches of security. And 60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within 6 months of the disaster according to the Boston Computing Network’s Data Loss Statistics.
Preventing data loss has always been essential for businesses but since 25th May 2018 it’s now EU law. The new GDPR directive serves to protect the personal data of anyone in the EU. Most IT systems in some way handle and store personal data which is why it is particularly important to ensure your IT systems are GDPR compliant.
How can we help protect your business?
Anti-virus
With the use of F-secure anti-virus we can provide comprehensive cover for all your client PC’s and servers. We can deploy a customised site wide policy to ensure that you’ve got the very best tailored approach and if there’s a problem our helpdesk team will automatically be informed so we can resolve the issue pro-actively. We’ll also make sure we keep you informed of any renewals so that your protection doesn’t lapse.
Patch Management
As part of our service we will proactively manage and monitor your devices and network to identify and address vulnerabilities before they affect productivity or constitute a risk to your business. We use a best in breed Remote Monitoring and Management Software to routinely scan for performance issues and enforce patch policies to ensure all system software is kept up to date to reduce security threats.
Disaster Recovery & Backup
Many people still use a physical non encrypted USB backup disk or device. The loss/theft of such a disk in transit could lead to non compliance under GDPR regulations and substantial damage to the company if the data is leaked or compromised.
If the very worst happens, we use the very latest technology to keep your data safe. The solution differs depending on whether your data and services are kept in the cloud or stored on a local server but the principles surrounding our backup processes are the same. We aim to provide backup security encryption, long retention periods, speedy recovery and the ability to monitor and quickly react to backup problems. Using our Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools in conjunction with our helpdesk software we’re able to achieve this which is why you can trust in Computerlink to protect your data and vital IT systems.
Enhanced Security & Encryption
It’s essential that devices are encrypted. This means that if they are lost or stolen then the data is still secured. Most devices with windows 10 professional can be encrypted but this process becomes manageable with an additional O365 Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) licence. EMS essentially enables the machines to store their private encryption key securely in the cloud. The EMS system controls the data access policy so that if a particular machine falls out of compliance i.e. encryption fails then access to the data becomes restricted. EMS will also permit device policies such as complex passwords and hardware restrictions i.e. USB storage restrictions which prevents users from removing data via USB sticks or screensavers than require a password to unlock the device after a defined time period.
Other standard office 365 tools also enable us to enhance security your systems. The most significant is by enabling Multifactor Authentication on your O365 Accounts. We’ll walk you through the entire process.
Retention of Data
GDPR specifically states that companies can store and process personal data for “no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed.” If you only keep the data you need there’s less to secure. In short, your liability becomes lessened.
Using office 365 tools we can customise your data retention period automatically so you don’t have to worry about it. This can be applied to email, One Drive & Sharepoint data.
Password Security - Password Manager
For every web site or online service that you visit you should use a unique complex password. This prevents a hacker from gaining access to all your sites using the same credentials. However, It’s difficult to keep track of all your different logins. The best way to accomplish this to use a password manager such as Lastpass https://www.lastpass.com/. You can create complex passwords automatically and store them all in one place easily accessible on your computer or mobile device. However, please make sure you enable MFA for additional security.
Email Filtering
More than 90% of targeted attacks start with email, and these security threats are always evolving. This is why we offer an award winning Email Protection service called Proofpoint to our managed users. It provides multiple layers of security to stop malware and non-malware threats, such as email fraud. It can control all aspects of inbound and outbound email to detect and block threats, and prevent confidential information from getting into the wrong hands.
Call on us before someone calls on you!
Interested in evaluating your IT GDPR compliance & Security? Let us walk you through the process step by step.