Business Perspective: Business advantage on data security

Chatting to a businessman on a 4.00 am flight to Nairobi two weeks ago, he told me that he was in Rwanda to collect his client’s data after an employee‘s revenge on his sacking drove him to delete all the company data and mess with the company systems. This is a lesson he learnt the hard way and decided that upon recovering all the data they lost, all the computers in his company should be installed with software that makes it impossible for any employee to delete or copy any data from their computers. In fact he has a new security department in his company that oversees the protection of the company data. It is amazing that his company acquired software that monitors what one does on their computers at any given time and records everything -Talk of technology! Personal and business information is one of the most sought after, most liquid commodities in this digital age. As business owners become more and more aware of the dangers of digital transactions the importance of data security and storage will become more and more pronounced. And indeed many business owners have now seen the need to take extra care in protecting their data. In fact, many business owners who have now taken the measure of protecting their data have suffered some kind of security breach before and had to spend huge amounts of time and resources on installing security systems which provide data security. The problem was that many companies were not prepared to deal with any possible threat to their businesses until when the technology era arrived and showed us the extent of damage that can be caused by one person sitting on a computer. In some cases, some avenues to stealing data from a company may have been completely blocked, but others were unknowingly left wide open. Securing the data of customers should be the number one priority for any business. Without customers, the business would fail. And without data security, the customers will take their business to a competing company. Protecting information about new and existing products is also a priority. Competing companies may be looking for a leg up and could find that help by using stolen data. Innovation is key to surviving in most businesses today, and in order to protect its intellectual property, a company needs to pay attention to data security. Personal information about employees, such as Social Security Numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, and employment records should also be protected. It is vital to the success of a business to protect the interests of its employees because they are what make a company succeed. Last but not least it is important for a company to protect financial information and other data about the business. If accessible to unauthorized users, this information could harm the business’s reputation or provide impetus for legal action against the company. Protecting company information is therefore essential.For many companies however, they decide to engage the services of a data security company which is responsible in providing secure storage for a company’s data. These private data companies usually have multiple layers of data security and systems in place to watch over these important data round the clock. Although most business owners know how important it is to securely store data, they don’t always have a good data storage plan in place. Some businesses do not understand the need for formal planning about data security. Others feel that they can protect their data with simple common sense. Unfortunately, relying on common sense and no formal plan is a bad recipe for data storage in this technology era. Storing sensitive data in a responsible, secure way requires detailed formal planning and trained professionals for business prosperity. kayitesius@yahoo.com