The internet opened so many doors to businesses. It gave companies a great platform to build brand awareness and interact with their customers. Some like eCommerce stores operate entirely from the internet.
Sadly, conducting your businesses online also exposes you to several risks. Hackers, spyware, and other issues have become commonplace. To protect your digital assets and reputation as a company, you must address these threats.
Below are some of the most effective tips that you can implement right now to safeguard your online assets.
1. Identify All Your Digital Assets
You cannot protect that which you don’t know about. Therefore, the top priority is conducting a comprehensive audit to identify all the assets under your company’s name. And no, don’t assume you know every online property your company has. An audit is necessary if you want to cover all the bases.
What exactly are digital assets, though? Here is a list of some of the most common online assets:
- Website – This includes the domain name as well as the content on your website.
- Social media pages – It covers all social media accounts and the content published on them.
- Intellectual property – These are patents and trademarks.
- Mobile applications – Your company’s apps are available on different operating systems.
- Business photos – All images created by your firm.
- Business processes – This includes any materials or processes that are developed and used by your company. Business spreadsheets are the perfect example.
- Client lists – Includes your mailing list and any other document containing the contacts of clients.
2. Set Up Two-factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication (2FA) has been a lifesaver for many businesses. With this security authentication method, anyone trying to access an asset has to provide two types of information. The most common ones would request a password followed by a code sent either by email or text.
Multi-factor authentication increases the security of your online properties significantly. Even if hackers get your passwords, they’ll have to provide secondary details which they probably can’t access.
Also, the notification produced when someone tries to access a document, site, etc., can serve as a warning that your assets are in danger. This should give you some time to counter the threat.
3. Encrypt The Data
Cybersecurity experts report that data is always at risk when it’s in transit and at rest. In other words, you expose your data to serious threats whenever you are transferring it between locations and when it’s stored.
To counter transit threats, they recommend encrypting the data before transmission. It should then be decrypted once it arrives at the endpoint.
To protect stored data, you need to manage access to the data. That means controlling who accesses what data.
Data must also be kept in secure storage mediums.
4. Educate Your Employees
Digital asset protection is not a one-person show. You must work closely with your employees. After all, they are the ones who interact with the property most of the time.
Start by educating the employees about the importance of online asset protection. Explain the roles that each employee plays in data protection. Finally, take them through comprehensive training covering what to do to preserve the integrity of these assets.
5. Back-Up Your Data Regularly
Your data can get compromised despite all your efforts in protecting it. This can happen at the hands of a hacker, or it can be due to hardware and software issues.
Data backup is a mitigation plan that reduces the impact of data breaches on your company’s operations. The strategy speeds up recovery and can help you avoid costly downtimes.
How often should a business back up its data? There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Generally speaking, most companies perform backups once every week. However, it all depends on the specific type of business. If your company uses the same data almost every day, then a backup doesn’t have to be so frequent. On the other hand, if you deal with lots of new data, regular backups may be warranted.
6. Consider Using A Digital Asset Management System
Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems are designed for managing and protecting online assets. As the professionals at IntelligenceBank.com report, DAM software provides a centralized platform where you can create, share, and track your assets. They even support the management of metadata.
These systems will simplify the management and protection of online assets dramatically.
7. Keep Your Wifi Secured
Follow Wi-Fi security best practices like storing your routers in secure locations, keeping the software and firmware updated, changing the Wi-Fi name and password frequently, and enabling the firewall.
This protects your connections against intruders.
Digital assets, like other company properties, must be protected. The integrity of your brand and business operations depends on it.
