Smartlockr Blog: Email and Data Security

5 Tips to prevent data breaches

Written by Smartlockr | Jul 26, 2022 2:00:00 PM

The number of reported data breaches keeps rising from year to year.

The good news is that you as an organization can take the right measures to ensure your security. We have listed 5 tips for you to reduce the risk of a data breach:



 

5 Tips to Prevent Data Leaks

 

Increase awareness

Most data breaches (74%) are caused by human error. By raising awareness among your employees - and highlighting the importance of safe work processes - sensitive data can be handled appropriately.

Read further: Why awareness is important for secure communication

 

Encryption and data backup

It is important to properly protect your sensitive data at all times. This includes while sending and storing it. With zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption for your emails, you keep unauthorized people out of your data. Only the sender and the receiver has access to the encryption keys, which means that even if someone would hack into your email, they could only see the encrypted message.

Additionally, if you are operating within the EU, you should ensure that your data storage is in line with the GDPR: choose a data center that keeps all data within the EU.

 

Avoid public networks

Do you want to work on the network of that nice coffee shop or perhaps the guest network of a customer? Please, please, please reconsider. Public networks are not secure, and logging into such a network could mean unauthorized access to your device.

 

Choose the right email solution

Email remains one of the most popular means of communication for businesses. By properly encrypting your email, you can prevent privacy-sensitive data from being shared with the wrong people. An additional check on recipients and attachments before sending, or a notification asking if you need to move recipients from CC to BCC, can also reduce the risks of sending emails to the wrong people by mistake.

 

Do not allow employees to install their own software

Leave the installation of software to the administrator within the organization. If every employee installed their own software, there is a good chance that this will also put unsafe software on the device. This runs the risk that unauthorized persons can access your data.

 

To stay informed


Do you want to stay informed about all the news about data security? Then keep an eye on our blogs - we will be happy to let you know which developments there are and which ones are coming! Or, read more about secure email.