The Secrets of Safeguarding Digital Assets
In the digital age, information is the foundation of almost every major business decision. That principle is true for operations, accounting, physical maintenance departments, marketing, human resources, and other fields. Protecting information has become another sub-category within the academic and working world. Companies that don’t pay attention to safeguarding their info, files, and databases risk losing out to competitors who do.
It’s easy to oversee digital asset stores with proper planning and commitment from ownership teams. This is particularly true for things like proprietary algorithms, client files, financial plans, and employee HR records. But what does safeguarding really mean? It’s about more than locking something away and never looking at it. One of the unique demands for modern managers is that they must keep files and records safe from prying eyes but use them daily. Here are pertinent details about the methods used by companies to safeguard their digital assets.
Advanced Platforms
Special platforms are the go-to solution for department heads and owners who worry about storage and access. Many turn to popular products like snowflake and Databricks. But it’s essential to remember that even two of the leading platforms display a major difference in how they store and access the data that they are designed to protect. Still, both can bolster all-around security while giving users a chance to use the information and files in real time. Whether the digital files are structured or not makes no difference, but the two platforms are nowhere near identical.
Databricks is an analytics platform with in-built security capabilities, like encryption and role-based controls. Plus, it’s based on Apache Spark and is fully scalable. Alternately, Snowflake comes with multi-cluster architecture, native encryption, and granular access controls. It’s cloud-based, too, which is one of the common forms of operation for today’s warehousing programs. If you’re a manager who needs to know more about the similarities and differences between Databricks and Snowflake, you can review a comprehensive review of the two platforms, user opinions about their respective strengths and drawbacks, as well as a line-by-line comparison of their capabilities.
Encryption
One of the oldest layers of protection for companies that want to keep their databanks secure is encryption. While the technology is relatively old, the latest tweaks have made it the most cost-effective way to maintain high-level security. The beauty of encryption is in its simplicity. In one swoop, it can make vast amounts of information unreadable to anyone except for authorized individuals.
Plus, the top retail apps can convert any amount of plain text files into ciphertext. They accomplish this feat with the help of sophisticated algorithms. Whether the files are in transit or in storage, encryption works to protect them from unwarranted intrusions. There are two common standards in place that boost confidentiality and integrity, RSA, and AES.
Audits
When business owners want to find vulnerabilities within their systems and do whatever they can to deal with potential security gaps ahead of time, they perform audits to monitor and fully assess the existing infrastructure of their IT environment. Organizations of all sizes can benefit from performing routine audits, general vulnerability, penetration tests, and more. It’s one way of not only staying one step ahead of industry regulatory rules but also making sure there are no ongoing threats to information integrity. Larger entities use in-house IT experts to perform audits. Smaller businesses and solo owners tend to outsource the function to stand-alone tech firms that specialize in the auditing function.
Disaster and Backup Plans
To minimize downtime in the face of a widespread cyber disaster or meltdown, companies use pre-set recovery strategies and backup plans. It’s the wisest and most cost-efficient way to protect files from all sorts of threats and keep systems online when users can’t afford to lose their connections. One of the many ways the technology works is to replicate files that happen to be dispersed across huge geographic areas. They also rely on the cloud to hold portions of larger databases. That way, there’s a built-in redundancy and a much easier way to restore services in emergencies.
Employee Training
Amid all the high-tech solutions, it’s easy to overlook the human side of the equation. Many security breaches are caused by those who unwittingly make errors. The single most effective way to prevent everyday mistakes is to invest in awareness and training programs. Top corporations incentivize this kind of education by giving workers paid college tuition for cybersecurity classes they take or awarding monetary bonuses for completed CEUs.
What do the best programs teach? Along with standard cybersecurity subjects, they explore industry best practices, file handling protocols, phishing awareness, and how to minimize common threats. Training should be built into onboarding programs and continue at regular intervals for all employees. Depending on the industry, some training programs are mandated for anyone who handles sensitive data.
