Stealing company information used to be the specialty of spiesand conspirators. It was something that only happened to the mostpowerful of corporations and branches of government.
Nowadays, stealing data is commonplace and anyone can become avictim at any time. The person standing in line behind you mightbe running a profitable side business stealing other peoplesâ?'sensitive data. The reality is, however, that â??insideâ?? jobs arethe most common when discussing business data theft.
Instead of looking through the crowds trying to pick out the lawbreakers, and instead of spending boatloads of money conductingthorough background checks on all those whom you encounter inyour business, itâ?'s easier to simply protect your data fromprying eyes and malicious intentions.
Easier, yes. But protecting company data isnâ??t something thatmany small business owners do. Into their computer programs theyinput their products and pricing, their vendors, their EINs andTINs, their checking account numbers, email addresses of familymembers, their proprietary information, their marketing plans andformulas â?" everything goes into the computer.
Whatâ?'s worse is when a business owner stores this type ofinformation on a laptop computer, an item especially vulnerableto theft. Someone stealing laptops probably could care less aboutthe information that is stored on them, but why take that risk.If youâ??re going to protect your sensitive company data, itâ?'s allor nothing.
And protecting data is definitely your responsibility if you arean accountant or you specialize in other types of financialbusinesses. Your clients assume you are protecting theirfinancial documents and their other sensitive records. But areyou? Kudos to you, if you are. If you are not, you better takethis issue seriously right now, before the damage occurs.
The best way to protect data is by using encryption software.Encryption means making data unreadable to everybody except thosewho know or understand the key or the code. When data isencrypted, it is far more secure than it is if just protectedusing a password.
Passwords that are required to login to a program are consideredauthentication methods, where the identity of the person loggingin is simply authenticated, or verified. But passwords are easyto figure out and anyone capable of figuring out passwords willstill have access to the data contained within.
So for data to truly be protected, youâ??ve got to go the extrastep and encrypt it. There are many encryption programs availabletoday. The most sophisticated of those protect our nationâ?'ssecrets.
But for the small business owner, who has minimal understandingof encryption methodologies or terminology, and wants it to staythis way, ease of use is whatâ?'s important.
Behind the scenes, all encryption software uses an algorithm orsome other complex mathematical processes to scramble the data.Keys or strings of binary numbers (bits) are created and are whatis used to mix up the data. The binary numbers and the data mixtogether and the result are data that is unreadable.
When more binary numbers are used, more encryption combinationsare possible. Therefore, longer strings (more binary numbers orbits) are preferred when encrypting because this makes the codeeven more difficult to break. So it makes sense that 128-bitencryption software is more secure than 56-bit encryptionsoftware.
Data that is encrypted is safe from prying eyes which means thatyour business data is safe. To view data that has been encrypted,it must be decrypted.
Whether you need to protect your e-commerce website, your email,your business data or that of your clients, be sure you useencryption software.
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