Thieves no longer just enter our homes or offices physically. We live in an era where thieves enter our spaces without even being there; making it more and more difficult to catch them. 300.6 million individuals were impacted with data breaches in 2020. Data is a short but a heavy word. Data can be worth millions for some companies, accounting for all cliental information, employee contracts, information collected and more as such.
Companies have to take care of their data just like they have to take care of their assets. Especially, when it comes to data driven companies, it is important that they keep safety of data as their first and foremost priority.
What are the intentions?
Data theft can be of various types. A few types of data theft are carried out just to establish a fear amongst a company. They just try to prove that we can enter company data files and try to threaten for some money. While some data thefts are made by amateur young hackers as a prank. But some data thefts can really put company image and their clients at risk.
What all can go wrong?
As of today, majority of data is stored online and digitally. Online data storage has its own pros and cons. It becomes easy to access data but it also becomes easy for hackers to gain access of this data. And once the data is stolen, it can be used and misused in innumerable ways. Customers phone numbers can be sold to bogus companies who might spam them. Social security numbers can be used to take loans and mortgages without the knowledge of its owner. Emails, GPS location, Phone numbers and debit/ credit card information can be leaked on dark web and what not.
What can you do?
Sounds really scary right? One little mistake of carelessness or ignorance can lead to an unerasable spot on company’s name. Hence it becomes really important that the company data is handled by experienced experts. Such experts cost a fortune if they are hired for a single company. Instead of hiring a data management team, such work can easily be outsourced and provided to a third party. That way, the company saves monetarily and also as the data shall be taken care by experts, the company can focus on its primary working rather than worrying about its data being stolen.
In conclusion,
In today’s date, it is impossible to store all important company data in a physical form and actually use it when needed without storing it online. Hence it becomes very important that the data is stored properly and safely, it is managed and filtered by experts and is converted from raw form to usable information. The purpose of data is to turn it into information and turn information into insight. So, manage your data attentively.