Preventing serious data misuse in business

Data is everything in business today. As firms increasingly go digital, it only makes sense to become increasingly dependent on this type of information management.

In the wrong hands, though, even the savviest business tools can be used with ill intent. For example, there have been incidents of people like delivery drivers using company data to track down customers and contacting them later on.

While not doing things like this goes without saying, there’s not always a guarantee your employees will behave as they should.

Obviously, it’s not productive to suspect the worst in your workers. While most will use company data properly, there may always be those that don’t, whether deliberately or accidentally. Your firm must strive to prevent these disasters.

Fortunately, more than a few options are available to mitigate the likelihood of data misuse in a company.

Work with reputable third party services

Safeguarding your firm from your own workers isn’t always a pleasant feeling. You can remove put some distance between you and them by working with dedicated third-party services that know all too well the risks certain employees can pose.

For instance, Datto SaaS Protection provides data backup services. While they can help in the event data becomes corrupted or unusable, they also acknowledge that a backup and disaster recovery plan can be useful if an employee accidentally or maliciously deletes critical data or emails. Securely backup your Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 data with SaaS Protection.

You can also outsource cloud storage and cybersecurity needs. That way, you can have a secure server for all your data and ensure that any transgressing workers can’t easily bypass the measures that experts have set up. You can also save money by outsourcing if you need another incentive.

Outsourcing can also prevent tensions from rising internally. After all, if your own IT technicians and cybersecurity experts have to reprimand staff, it may create an unpleasant working atmosphere for a while. If external specialists oversee things, all measures can be objective and irrefutable.

Analyse employee behaviour

Get to know your employees. The closer you are, the easier it is to spot inconsistencies in their behaviour, which may impact data protection.

Are your employees taking liberties and being reckless elsewhere in their position? Do they seem distant or distracted? Have any employees reported any concerns?

While you shouldn’t be micromanaging your employees relentlessly, keeping an eye on their activities, and instructing your colleagues to watch out for each other, may help you avoid any data-related errors of judgement.

Data isn’t always digital, either. If employees print out their data and leave sensitive paperwork on their desks, then politely requesting that they shred it will prevent the paperwork from being lost or misused.

Perhaps enforce a clean desk and paperwork shredding policy, and employees may also provide gentle reminders to each other.

It may also be a good idea to tailor how you delegate data-related tasks based on how employees are behaving. If any workers are stressed or are dealing with busy schedules, burdening them further with sensitive data tasks may make mistakes almost inevitable.

Avoid those situations by requesting that someone else carry out those responsibilities. Computer security updates can be scheduled on another’s behalf, too, just to ensure it’s done.

Implement multi-factor authentication

Part of a robust cybersecurity plan involves multi-factor authentication. It’s worth noting that these measures are becoming more commonplace and are essential to keep your employees away from sensitive data.

Start your approach to multi-factor authentication by developing need-to-know policies for information security. All workers should be aware that they only need access to information that concerns them.

Once they have that understanding, they shouldn’t even attempt to access parts of a cloud server that aren’t relevant to them.

Multi-factor authentication is then the important safety net surrounding those measures. To be authorised to access certain files, workers will then potentially need to provide a password, fingerprint, answers to security questions, retinal scans, or even voice commands.

You can have two more of these measures at any one time, so the sequence of checks is up to you.

Double check key processes

Data misuse can occur at any time. Key internal processes have to be regularly reviewed and improved upon where necessary.

For example, termination procedures should be utterly robust. Disgruntled employees are most likely to tamper with data after they’ve been fired or made redundant, so ensuring they lose all access to sensitive company information immediately is imperative.

Data Protection Impact Assessments around data security should be routinely carried out. Do they account for every threat to your firm’s data? Are things like GDPR rules being followed completely?

These measures do help your business comply with GDPR’s accountability principle and can be used as proof of compliance with stakeholders.

Background checks should be thorough around each prospective new employee, too. If potential hires have had dodgy dealings with data in the past, there should be a record of it, and you can avoid recruiting them.