Kevin Gilbert
Marketing data, including customer and sales information, is some of the most valuable information within an organization. It is paramount that this information remain secured from tampering and theft. Companies that have experienced data loss have experienced large fines and loss of reputation, and some have gone out of business. In this series of short posts, we’ll provide tips for securing your data on various devices and at data connection touch points. In this post we’ve provided best practices for remote data access.
ACCESSING CORPORATE RESOURCES FROM OFFSITE
Suppose hackers really wanted your corporate data – how would they go about trying to access it? Would they try to hack into your company? Probably not. Your company has an IT group dedicated to keeping data secure. Instead, the hacker will get a company listing of employees and attempt to hack the employees’ home computers. It is less likely that a home computer or home network is secure. The following are some things you can do to stay safe while accessing corporate resources from offsite:
- Do not put your home computer directly on the internet, especially if you are using a broadband/DSL connection. Instead use a consumer grade firewall (such as a Linksys product) between your computer and your internet modem.
- Make sure your home computer is up-to-date with virus and spam protection. Some excellent products include Defender and Windows Security Essentials from Microsoft.
- If your home computer becomes compromised, do not try to clean it. Once a computer is compromised, you can never be sure it is completely clean. Instead, pay an IT professional to rebuild the computer.
- If you have wireless in your house, secure it with WPA security and hide the wireless identifier. Most newer wireless hubs support this capability.
- If you are using public wireless (such as in a hotel or coffee shop), anything you do might be watched by others. Be careful. And make sure the wireless network is really owned by the business and isn’t owned by another patron with a wireless network device pretending to be the public network.
- Connect to corporate resources using a VPN connection so that anything you do across the VPN is secure. Avoid accessing corporate information outside of the VPN.
There many things that can be done to keep data secure. In this post, I have touched on some of the most common. By implementing these best practices, you can help to assure that valuable data does not fall into the wrong hands.
About the Author:
Kevin Gilbert is the Technology Manager at SIGMA Marketing Group. Kevin headed the data center virtualization project for four years and is a VMWare Certified Professional (VCP). Connect with Kevin on .
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Marketing Data Security: Securing Your Cell Phone or Mobile Device
