Data protection can reduce the risk of cyber attacks which can affect your business or personal reputation. It is crucial to understand the best practices for protecting your sensitive information and follow the guidelines. A breach of your private information can result in lawsuits and fines that could have long-term implications for your company or you personally.

Secure all devices and files with a password. This simple step will protect you from hackers gaining access to your personal information. Make sure you use complex passwords that mix numbers, letters, and symbols. Change default passwords offered by the vendor to stronger passwords as soon as you can. Make sure you are using the most up-to-date antivirus software and perform a full security check of your system and servers.

Don't send confidential or personal sensitive information via email. This includes Social Security numbers, bank account information, passwords, etc. Email isn't secure and could be accessed by unfriendly parties.

Secure your network and data Use strong encryption to safeguard your laptops, computers and portable storage devices. This will allow you send data to third parties securely and protect data on the devices. It is why not look here also essential to have a plan of responding to cyber attacks and who to notify and how to respond (e.g. employees, customers, credit agencies).

You should make sure you have backups of all your data Keep offline copies of your critical data in different locations from where the primary copies are stored. This will help to prevent hackers from gaining unauthorised access to your primary copy, or from delete it.