Online Security
Policies Are Essential
Create a game plan today to avoid an ulcer tomorrow
It's okay to be paranoid when it comes to your company's online security.
Ask a Chief Security Officer (CSO) what keeps them up at night, and they'll go on and on about logins and passwords. They understand, even if others don't, just how vulnerable a company is. Let's say one disgruntled employee posts their username and password online days before quitting. Or a worker who was just fired goes home, logs in and deletes company data, images and consumer information from "secure" servers. Chaos ensues. Websites go down. Sales stop.
There is an alternative. Your best bet is to listen to your CSO, hire a security consultant, or work with a smart interactive agency to help put a security policy and procedure in place. The policy should cover data back-up initiatives for both disaster recovery and direct attacks and detail how to get your website back online if it's taken down. The important thing is that you get everything working again in minutes rather than days.
Constantly scrutinize all passwords. Think about how many employees you have. That's how vulnerable your servers really are. Keep things a bit safer with password education and mandatory bi-annual password changes. According to the experts at Microsoft, your employees' passwords should be at least 14 characters long, and include a combination of uppercase and lowercase numbers, letters and symbols.
Want to test your own password strength? Visit http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx and follow the directions. If you're like most busy business people, your password is probably lacking.
Take action with every exiting employee. If a person leaves your company, whether on good or bad terms, remove all of their access before they leave the building. It's a smart way to keep them honest and your data secure.
