By: Brian Tolkkinen, Chief Security Officer, MatrixCare

When we consider information Security, we often think about privacy in the business context where the worst-case scenario is a data breach. But this also corresponds with our personal lives where identity theft is a real problem, so it can be valuable to take security concepts we learn in the workplace and find ways they can be applicable and practical in our personal lives.

By comprehending the impact of a data breach at a personal level, then data privacy and security can become better felt and understood — ultimately helping us in our ability to commit and do our part in protecting information both in our everyday lives and in the workplace. Here are five ways to help keep your data secure:

Be proactive for your business.

To limit the impact of a data breach in the workplace, be proactive by doing the training offered by your employer and taking it seriously. Understand your employer’s information, privacy and security policies, spend time with those policies that are more directly applicable to you as well, and know what to do and who to go to if you have questions or if you observe something out of the ordinary.

Be proactive with your personal security.

Educate yourself, know what resources you have at your disposal, and apply what you’re learning in the workplace to the home or to your personal life. In the workplace, we have processes for escalating, security incident response or privacy incidents for investigation. In your personal life, also have someone available who you can use as a sounding board if you experience identity theft. This person should be a calming influence and a thoughtful presence during that difficult and often very emotional experience.

Be watchful and curious.

For employers, providing effective training is critical. This is typically provided in different ways such as through videos, simulated phishing campaigns or instructor-led training that is role specific. It can help condition us to know what to watch for, so be attentive and try to establish a mindset of curiosity.

When something seems out of the ordinary, pursue it, ask questions and be unapologetic. The stakes are high and attackers are successful when we let our guard down, so we shouldn’t have to apologize for challenging questions or being curious.

Take a risk-based approach to security.

Every business should have even the most basic and fundamental security solutions in place. Focus on these fundamentals first because they will often protect you from the most common risks and maybe from most types of attacks.

Since more advanced protections are often costly, it’s important to think about this in terms of cost versus risk. Leverage third parties for risk assessment to help you validate your thinking and your approach to security. This risk-based mindset can help you identify areas that you’ve missed.

Consider basic protections and safeguards.

Some general safeguards and best practices include:

• Have a firewall that is kept up to date with patches.
• Use strong passwords and use encryption on your mobile devices and your workstations.
• Set up alerts for your bank accounts and credit cards to help you monitor unusual activity.
• Implement two-step or multi-factor authentication for sites that contain sensitive information such as bank accounts or workplace access points.
• Don’t click on anything unless you verified that the sender is legitimate.

Request a demo to see for yourself how MatrixCare can bring an innovative approach to your data security strategy.

The post 5 Ways to keep your data secure appeared first on MatrixCare.