Why should I care about Data Security?
Take a moment to consider the following question: What is more expensive…. spending money on the right Data Security solution or paying RANSOMWARE FEES, fines, court fees, the loss of your company’s reputation, and your clients walking away from your business down the street to your competitors? As a business owner thinking “why should I spend any more money on my computer system, I have an IT company that should be taking care of that”, this question is why I’m writing to you.
I need to first set the record straight by saying, Data Security is not an IT problem, it is a business risk problem. The reason I say this is because IT looks at the functionality, durability and productivity of your network devices, which is a good thing to do. But data security looks at your company at the user level, where the risk ultimately starts. Every time you hire someone you must perform background checks on that person and a portion of that decision, depending on the position you hire them for, is based on if they would intentionally compromise your critical data. Those types of thought don’t go in to buying the right computer with enough RAM, that is the job for IT.
Trust me I know what you’re thinking, “spending more money as a small business, just isn’t feasible right now, I will just deal with it if it comes my way”. Unfortunately, that could be too late depending on the situation. Example, if you live in Indiana and you have 500 or more records of client personally Identifiable information gets compromised, you are required by law to report the compromise to the authorities and to everyone whose records you have. This is at the point that you could lose client loyalty and they could walk away from you. The WRONG way is to not report it, but if one of your 500 or more clients find out their information was stolen because you were compromised, they can sue you and the authorities can fine you thousands of dollars for not reporting it properly and stick you with the bill for sending all your 500 contacts to breach counseling. In 2015 the average cost per stolen record was $217 per record and if you had only 500 records that would be 500 x $217 = $108,500, is that worth waiting to deal with it, if it comes your way?
