“Balance, training and common sense are the critical skills separating you from life and death,” said the tightrope walker to his student.  The same is true of protecting the life of your organization’s data.

The necessary migration to cyberspace solutions and the proliferation of malware, ransomware, and other threats has encouraged many organizations to modify their security policies. However, overlooking continuity basics may present even greater risks. Data loss is very expensive regardless of the cause. A recent Gartner (News - Alert) Group study estimates that as many as one in four PCs can fail in a single year, so even without external attacks your organization’s data remains vulnerable. Plus, legacy technologies like email will continue to be deployed by many organizations because they do not have a suitable replacement. (Refer to Jon Arnolds’s column in the April 2016 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.)

The balancing act is not as daunting as you may imagine. Many business continuity procedures are identical for both legacy and cybersecurity strategies. For example, being careless with your devices whether in your workplace or a public area can allow someone to steal the device or copy information in a matter of seconds. In an increasingly mobile world, business travelers must also be more conscious of securing their PCs, smartphones, tablets, and flash drives. Using a hotel-supplied safe is a start, but traveling with only the information essential to the trip is critical, as is encrypting all the files on the devices. Think of it as dry cleaning your devices in order to travel clean.

A company policy emphasizing good housekeeping is another common sense practice. It enhances in-house data security plus enables mobile workers to travel clean. According to IDC (News - Alert), unstructured data such as spreadsheets, images, and presentations can account for more than 80 percent of an organization’s data and continues to increase at a rapid rate. This is akin to storing your children’s Halloween candy from 2010 in the kitchen pantry. Candy and data need to be purged regularly to keep them from going rancid.

The above recommendations only cover some of the many possibilities. The next step is to assess your organization’s disaster preparedness policies. Then visit TMCnet's Online Communities at www.tmcnet.com and search for additional ideas including cloud data management solutions. 

Max Schroeder is vice president emeritus of FaxCore Inc. (www.faxcore.com). Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) is the CEO at TMC (www.tmcnet.com), and conference chairman of ITEXPO.