Protect and Secure Customer Data: Best Practices for Businesses

Protect Your Customer Data | Secure Your Business Now

Nowadays, privacy and keeping customer information safe are very important in this digital world. Customers give companies private information every day, so data security is very important. Threats like data hacks, on the other hand, can make personal information like credit card numbers and other private information public.

Protect Your Customer Data | Secure Your Business Now | right-hand cybersecurity

This damages trust and puts customers at risk. Protecting customer information starts with knowing how hacker attacks can happen. Users’ privacy is at risk when someone gets into their data without permission, which can happen through hacking, malware, or security holes. Adopting the best data protection techniques is very important. According to security standards, this means encrypting private data and following them to ensure complete data security and good customer data protection.

Related Topic: How to Build Customer Trust through Data Privacy in Your Business

How can customer data be protected?

Businesses must use data protection techniques to secure customer data. Implementing best practices like regular security audits deters data breaches, while encryption protects personal data like card data. Limiting access is necessary to avoid hacker exploits, while adherence to stringent security standards ensures consumer data stays protected. Prioritizing such measures by businesses ensures customer data protection that instills consumer trust while remaining private and safe.

Why is it important to keep customer information safe?

Data protection is essential for consumer trust and loyalty, which underpin successful customer interactions. A business’s reputation and customer experience can suffer from data breaches. Adhering to data privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act ensures compliance and protects consumer data. Regular data backups, secure network standards, and data access restrictions protect client data. Securing client data and maintaining a safe data environment protects your business’s future. Good data governance and management protect consumers and sensitive personal data inside businesses.

Related Topic: The Rising Tide of Data Breaches and What It Means for Your Business

What are the best practices for securing your clients data?

With over 60% of businesses experiencing some form of cyberattack every year and the normal cost of a data breach reaching millions, the urgency for robust customer data protection strategies has never been more critical. Here is how to protect the data of customers effectively.

Implement Advanced Encryption Techniques

Utilizing cutting-edge encryption is of utmost importance in order to safeguard data at rest and in transit from becoming accessible by third parties without permission. For better protection against cyberattacks, using encryption methods and keys is recommended.

Conduct Thorough Security Audits

Regular security audits conducted by highly experienced security specialists help businesses maintain an encrypted data environment by revealing any vulnerabilities and providing opportunities to address weaknesses preemptively.

Comprehensive Employee Training

Employees play an essential part in safeguarding data. Training employees on current security threats and best practices can significantly decrease human error, one of the leading causes of data breaches.

Opt for Secure Cloud Storage Solutions

Selecting cloud services that prioritize security features is crucial. Extra security for saved data is provided by services that offer advanced encryption, multi-factor authentication, and other safety measures.

Enforce Strict Data Access Controls

Restricting access to data only to authorized personnel reduces internal threats. Setting up strict access controls is one way to make sure that private information is only seen by people who need it for their jobs.

Maintain Up-to-Date Security Protocols

The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving. Regularly updating security software, protocols, and policies to combat new threats is vital for protecting customer data.

Implement Real-Time Monitoring for Data Breaches

Early identification of data breaches is absolutely crucial, and employing monitoring tools that alert you of suspicious activity may help minimize its effect.

Develop a Comprehensive Incident Response Plan

Making a clear, doable plan for how to react to data breaches is essential.
What needs to be done is written down in this plan. to secure data, assess and mitigate damage, and communicate with affected parties.

Ensure Regulatory Compliance

Compliance with data protection regulations is both required by law and essential in building customer trust. Being aware and following relevant laws protects businesses against There are legal consequences and damage to your image.

Cultivate a Security-First Culture

Integrating a security culture within an organization is fundamental. Promoting an environment in which everyone understands and engages actively in protective measures improves overall security posture.

Protection of client sensitive data is complex and requires constant adjustment. If businesses do these ten things, they can make their data safer, build trust with customers, and stop data breaches. The most important thing is to keep customer information safe, and strong security measures can be set up and kept up with hard work.

Related Topic: How to Protect Your Computer Network from Viruses and Attacks 

Final Thoughts:

Securing consumer data is vital for building and sustaining trust and the long-term sustainability of an organization. In order to do so, strong password policies, secure networks, encryption software updates, limiting access to sensitive information by employees only when necessary, and robust backup and recovery strategies should all be put in place in order to safeguard client privacy.

Keeping customer data safe is important in all of these ways, which shows how important it is for businesses to be proactive about data safety. So that they can protect customer card information from new threats, businesses need to know where their weak spots are.

Now is the time for businesses to put data security first. Companies show they care about data privacy and security by taking steps to protect customer data. Customers will trust you more because of this. At Right Hand Technology Group, we specialize in data protection for the digital world. We protect not just data, but consumers too!

FAQs: Quenching Your Thirst for Knowledge

Q: How often should I teach my employees about keeping information safe?

A: Think of it as a routine check-up. Doing it annually is good, but for optimal health, sprinkle in some quarterly refreshers.

Q: Is there such a thing as too much encryption?

A: In the world of data security, there’s no such thing as being too cautious. However, balance is key. Too much encryption can slow down your systems, so find that sweet spot.

Q: How can I make sure my backups are secure?

A: Treat your backups like a treasure. Encrypt them, store them in secure locations (both physically and digitally), and test them regularly to ensure they’re recoverable.

Security Services

Do You Have Cybersecurity Specialists Protecting Your Organization’s Assets?

With many years of experience in helping organizations manage cyber risk, our specialists have a deep understanding of cybersecurity risks and defense. Our Security Services help you to identify what can harm your organization, your clients, and your stakeholders and build the right plan to mitigate risk.

The old saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” When it comes to cybersecurity, you cannot defend against a threat if you do not know it is there. We help you understand the risks and identify and implement what your organization needs to defend against cybercrime proactively.

Security Begins With Assessing What You Have Now – Assessment Services

  • Cybersecurity Risk Assessments – We evaluate your organization from a technical or process-driven approach. We not only look to access your network through penetration testing and social engineering (exploiting weaknesses in both technical and human processes), but we also evaluate security throughout your organization by meeting with critical departments to understand how they use technology and data. We then guide you through the risk to your organization and the recommended strategies for remediating the risk.
  • Regulatory Assessments – Cybersecurity affects every facet of your organization. Often an organization’s exposure to the complexities of cybersecurity occurs when a regulatory body or client insists that your level of cybersecurity matches theirs in the supply chain. We have deep experience in securing our clients’ IT environments so they can meet these expectations. This not only provides your organization with the confidence to address your client’s security questions but importantly prepares your organization for any of the many compliance audits that may occur.
  • Control Assessments – Our clients often request that we review their existing cybersecurity program or controls that are currently in place to ensure that they are still relevant in an ever-changing threat environment.
  • Penetration Testing – Penetration testing is enacted independently or as a part of an overall risk assessment. Penetration testing is executed to identify vulnerabilities and configuration weaknesses currently in your organization, then exploits them to determine your organization’s level of risk. Our services include:
    • External penetration testing
    • Internal penetration testing and vulnerability scanning
    • Social Engineering attacks (identifying if we can exploit an employee’s account and how far can we continue the attack)
    • Wireless penetration testing

Our goal is to provide you with the results of your organizations’ assessment as well as the remediation strategies to mitigate the risk. One of our core strengths is that we also help you implement the remediation strategies should you choose to engage us.

How Do We Protect Your Organization? Delivery Services

The following services are provided as a part of a project or within an ongoing Managed Services agreement.

  • Vulnerability Management Services – Good cyber hygiene is one of the core defenses in cybersecurity. By ensuring that system vulnerabilities are being managed in a structured manner, you immediately lower your organization’s risk of being exploited. We help you set up your program with a goal of reducing vulnerabilities to a level that is acceptable to you. Right Hand will also manage your program as part of its Managed Service offerings.
  • Incident Management Program – Having an effective security incident management strategy in place prepares your organization to detect, assess, respond, and resolve a security incident. Establishing and implementing this strategy provides evidence of your preparedness to your current and potential clients as well as regulatory bodies. We help organizations define their program and test it over time to ensure that when an incident occurs, they are ready to meet the challenge.
  • Data Protection Strategies – By understanding and classifying the data and assets related to them, as well as the regulations that control its use, you can build a very targeted security program directed at what is critical to your organization. We help organizations define their classification strategies and help them build the right technical and process-driven controls to protect them.
  • Cyber Governance – For many organizations, the first big endeavor into the world of cybersecurity is when a client requests that you adhere to a cybersecurity regulation or standard. One of the core activities in this process is cyber governance – to ensure that the controls put in place are executed correctly. We help you form the appropriate levels of steering committees to make these decisions as well as put the structure in place to run a comprehensive cybersecurity program.
  • CISO Services and Staff Augmentation – Many organizations struggle to put in place a cybersecurity department and to structure its responsibilities to deliver a workable cybersecurity program. Others may have lost critical employees in a market where there are more jobs than skilled people to fill them. We have become the cybersecurity department for many organizations or supplemented their department with key skills. Our role can be short-term, (filling a key role while you are looking for a full-time option), or longer-term (creating the cybersecurity department and maturing it to the point you can bring in your own employees) — either way, we bring all of our experience and knowledge to the table.

What Other IT Support and IT Security Options Does the Right Hand Offer?

  • Complete IT Care (Managed IT Services) – Strategically maintaining, securing and monitoring IT environments for optimal operation and uptime
  • Co-Managed IT – Supplementing the in-house IT staff of mid-size to enterprise-level companies
  • Cybersecurity – Protecting the data, in-house assets, and cloud assets through proactive IT security management and incident response
  • Cloud Services – Leveraging the best of cloud solutions to provide cost savings and enable mobility and scaling capability
  • VOIP – Helping businesses make the most of modern, internet-based communications functionality
  • Server Virtualization – Using virtual technologies to enable cost savings along with backup/disaster recovery functionality
  • Business Continuity – Working with companies to establish a strategy that allows them to continue operating despite a localized disaster
  • Help Desk – Answering questions and troubleshooting IT issues

 

Business Continuity Solutions

Business Continuity Services by Right Hand

Is your current IT strategy prepared for the threats that your business faces every day?

From human error to menacing attacks, you can’t predict when the next threat will strike.

At the same time, your ability to get back online after a loss is vital to saving your organization. Moreover, protecting your data has never been more important in the face of strict compliance regulations like the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act.

How Do I Protect My Data and Reputation from Man-Made and Natural Disasters?

From extended power outages to DDoS attacks, the number of threats facing your organization could wipe your data in one fell swoop before you realize what happened. And if you don’t have a backup plan, that loss can be forever.

Rather than reacting to a data breach or IT system failure, businesses today need to be proactive to ensure you never put any of your client or organization information at risk

Business Continuity Services back up your critical IT systems, so you can get back up and running without missing significant time.

What Does a Business Continuity Strategy Offer?

  • Business Continuity Consulting
  • Customized Onsite Backup
  • Offsite Cloud Backup
  • Image File Backup
  • Disaster Recovery
  • 24/7 Monitoring
  • Regular Reboot Testing
  • Cloud Virtualization

How Does Right Hand Prevent Data Loss?

Our Business Continuity Strategy is a customizable, scalable service that starts with a full assessment of your business IT practices, IT assets, and data. With all the workflow unique to your organization in mind, we create a tailor-made backup and disaster recovery plan that not only covers your assets but acknowledges your liabilities.

Your customized plan encompasses every aspect of your IT workflow, so it will always be there when you need it.

In addition to emergency services, we provide regular onsite backup for all your IT assets, offsite cloud backup via our data centers, and special protection for all your image files. We also understand the importance of privacy legislation and your customers’ expectations, so we use high-quality encryption to protect every piece of data.

Our data practices make us a top choice for businesses that work with protected personal information, like healthcare organizations, financial services businesses, and law firms.

Along with cloud access, we provide cloud virtualization services. Virtualization means you can access your storage from your main office servers, a satellite office, or even a remote or home office using the credentials that only you have.

Because we believe that IT maintenance must be proactive rather than reactive, we also offer 24/7 backup monitoring. We double-check storage protocols to prevent any data loss or contamination and make sure that your data and workflow recovery is never more than a few clicks away.

All the services we offer, from backup to disaster recovery, benefit from regular testing. We don’t just put together a Business Continuity Plan. We test it and test it again to maximize performance in the event of a real emergency.

How Malware Impacts Businesses

Malware (malicious software) is a blanket term for any software that infects all or part of a computer or network. It disrupts IT and computer processes. A developer may use malware to steal your company’s data or hold it for ransom. In worst case scenarios, a hacker can use malware to access your customers’ private information or credit cards.

Computer SecurityHackers are so adept at infiltrating a network that they are now learning how to bypass firewalls, antivirus software, and even virtual private networks (VPN). As a result, businesses must now turn to outsourced IT companies in Pittsburgh who can utilize multilayer tactics, 24/7 monitoring, and penetration testing to keep the network safe.

How Can Malware Affect Your Business?

Malware used to be nothing more than an annoyance. But times have changed. Those little annoyances have now turned into disasters for business owners throughout the Pittsburgh area and the U.S. According to IBM’s 2018 Ponemon Institute study, close to 60% of small businesses in the U.S. have been hit with some type of cyber attack. Almost half of those businesses shut their doors within six months.

The other half that does manage to stay afloat still suffer in the following ways:

Business Disruption

Malware comes in all forms and can impact business continuity on multiple levels. It can bring day-to-day operations to a screeching halt, hijack private data, and cause massive damage to your business reputation. Malware can take complete control of your computer. It can alter or delete sensitive data, and even reformat your entire hard drive, complete erasing every file. It can also lock up your computer. In essence, it can disarm your entire company and kill your workflow.

Financial Losses

These days, companies now carry cyber insurance to cover the economic fallout of a cyber attack. How serious can it get? Hiscox reported that the average cost of a cyber attack to a small business per incident was just over $34,000. Enterprises lose over $1 million per occurrence. Business disruption, lost data, lost customers, lawsuits (or insurance claims), and network restoration costs account for most of the damages. What’s worse is that few hackers are ever caught.

Loss of Customer Data or Privacy

While closing your business and employees losing their jobs is bad enough, those who suffer the most from a cyber attack are your customers – in some cases, hundreds or thousands of them. Starting in August 2018, Toyota was hit with a series of worldwide data breaches that lasted for six months. The data breach exposed the personal information of over 3.1 million customers.

Keep in mind, most cyber attacks involve hijacking customer data. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that hackers are not looking for your company’s internal data. Instead, they are looking for your customers’ data. They want names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card information, social security numbers, and driver’s licenses.

Loss of Reputation

It’s simple:

If your customers cannot trust you with their personal information, they will not purchase your products or services.

To go one step further, your customers will tell everyone not to come near you, and they will post what happened on all their social media accounts. They will also give you poor reviews on review/rating sites. They may even file a claim or lawsuit against you to recover their damages.

But it doesn’t end there. The local or national news may report the data breach, and you may lose the respect of your peers in your industry. Yes, it is that bad. In fact, loss of reputation may be the single greatest contributing factor to your business shutting down after a cyber attack. After all, you can’t run a business without customers.

Contact Right Hand

The importance of finding a reputable IT company cannot be overstated. If you are a small business owner, and you need protection from malware such as ransomware, viruses, phishing, trojans, or spyware, then contact Right Hand today. We offer cybersecurity services and IT support. To find out more about our services, call us today at (412) 254-4448.

Who Offers Data Recovery Services In Pittsburgh?

Data Backup & Data Recovery Services In Pittsburgh

Most data loss is caused by four factors:

  1. Human error. Someone accidentally deleted or altered a file or made it inaccessible. Or, someone accidentally sent a file to the wrong person. A user may have also accidentally formatted a hard drive, wiping out all the onboard files.
  2. Equipment malfunction. A drive malfunctioned, or a server suddenly shut down and could not be opened. In some cases, a file may have been corrupted.
  3. Malicious attack. Someone stole a file or held data for ransom.
  4. Physical damage. A natural disaster or fire destroyed the hardware. Someone may have spilled water or coffee on a drive or a computer, thus, zapping the files.

If you have recently experienced data loss for any of these reasons, you may feel completely hopeless and wonder if there is any way to get the data back.

The answer is Yes, in many cases, you can get the data back.

However, what if there was a solution to keep you from losing the data in the first place? That solution exists. Before we go any further, let’s discuss how data recovery works, why outsourcing your data storage and management is a good idea, and how data loss prevention will save your digital assets.

How Does Data Recovery Work?

Data recovery Pittsburgh companies employ various means for recovering data depending on the circumstances and the software they use to retrieve the data. Typically, a service can retrieve files that you did not back up or that you accidentally deleted from your computer’s file system. These files may not appear to be in the system. However, fragments of the file still linger on the hard disk.

Data recovery specialists can recover your files by identifying the fragment locations (usually file allocation tables or FATs that are not working properly). If the file exists and it is not damaged or encrypted, then the specialist can recover it in the tables. If the file is damaged, missing, or encrypted, there may be other methods for recovering it. Even if the file is physically damaged, a technician may be able to recover it. For this reason, you should never totally give up on trying to get your files back.

Why Outsourcing Data Recovery is a Smart Investment

By placing your lost data in the hands of professionals, you have a greater chance of recovering it and keep it intact. Right Hand offers a wide range of recovery services that help you access your data once again.

You can trust our professionals to take additional care with your data, drives, software, and hardware to retrieve your missing information. Our services include:

  • Hard drive data recovery
  • Flash drives, SSD, and other digital devices
  • RAID repair
  • Computer forensics
  • Data tape repair
  • Virtual server repair

We utilize specialized equipment to retrieve your data regardless of what device or drive it is located on. Our processes and technology allow us to recover your data without damaging it safely. By using advanced technology, we can successfully recover and restore your data over 90% of the time. When you receive your files back, they will be as good as new.

This is why outsourcing data recovery to Right Hand is a smart investment.

Data Backup and Recovery Services: A Better Solution

As a business owner in Pittsburgh, you can’t afford to lose your files or suffer through downtime as you are waiting to get your data back from our offices. A better solution is to protect your data so that you never lose it for any reason.

Right Hand offers complete outsourced data backup and storage services for all types of businesses in Pittsburgh. We provide a broad spectrum of solutions for storing, accessing, and protecting your data so that you never have to worry about losing it again.

Some of our services include:

Cloud-Based Services

Our cloud-based services allow you to move your storage to a secure, centralized location where you always have access to it on any device from any location in the world. Cloud platforms are reliable, scalable, and easy to use.

Virtual Servers

Virtual servers are essentially-cloud based systems that store your data on a more reliable system. The greatest benefit to virtual servers is that they ensure that your data is safe regardless of what happens on-site. If your business experiences a natural disaster, security breach, power outage, equipment failure, or other emergencies, you can feel confident that your files are tucked away on a virtual server at a far away location.

Data Backup

It never hurts to have more than one copy of each file. However, backup your files on a local server, you may quickly discover just how much space they take up. Right Hand solves this problem by backup your files up on a separate server. We provide data backup storage with unlimited space for all of your files. By having multiple copies of your files in two different locations, you don’t have to worry about losing data or slowing down your network with too many files.

Data Security

In addition to storing your data, we can also eliminate unauthorized access to your data by storing it in a secure, cloud-based, encrypted server. Even if you do become the victim of a breach, users cannot get to your most private files if they are located off-site.

Data Recovery & Storage Services in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Right Hand works with healthcare providers, law firms, oil & gas companies, manufacturing companies, and financial services across the Greater Pittsburgh Area. We can help you discover and implement solutions for protecting and storing your data. We help you become more efficient and profitable through the use of computers, mobile devices, servers and other technology that drive your business.

For a free consultation, contact us today at (412) 254-4448. You can also message us at info@rhtg.net or start an online chat. We are here to help you!

Hackers – Human Error – Storms – What Do I Do to Protect My Data and Workflow?

Business Continuity Pittsburgh

Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity for Businesses

Is My Data, Workflow, and Business at Risk? – How Can Business Continuity Services Help?

Businesses face threats from many fronts every day. Since most companies are highly technology dependent and bound by strict compliance regulations, protecting your data is essential.

Though you can react in the face of a problem, a proactive approach is the better way to keep your IT systems secure.

Your IT environment could be sidelined by any number of events including natural disasters, cyber attacks, hardware failure, or even just good old-fashioned Mother Nature deciding she doesn’t want to play nice in the sandbox.

If you’re unprepared, the consequences could leave your business crippled.

Right Hand’s Business Continuity Services ensure that the critical IT systems of your business are backed up and can be spun up at another location if needed.

What is Included in a Business Continuity Strategy?

  • Business Continuity Consulting – We assess your business practices to create a business continuity plan which factors in all security measures necessary to protect your IT assets and data for the future.
  • Regular Onsite Backup – Right Hand manages all of your onsite servers and IT assets through regular backups.
  • Scalable Services –Need storage space? We’ve got you covered. Best of all, you can grow your services as your business grows, ensuring you never pay for things you don’t use.
  • Customized Backup and Disaster Recovery – Every business is different. We make sure that every IT-related element of your workflow can be accessed in the event of an emergency.
  • Image File Backups – With image files sent to our data center on an hourly basis, you can rest assured that your important photos, documents, and other data are safe and recoverable.
  • Offsite Cloud Backup – We use cloud data centers to provide additional backup storage for your important data. As an added layer of protection, all files are also encrypted.
  • Cloud Virtualization Services – Virtualization via the cloud gives you easy access to your files anywhere in the world at any time.
  • 24/7 Backup Monitoring & Validation – Ensuring that your data and systems are stored properly, preventing loss or contamination and ensuring a speedy recovery if necessary.
  • Regular Testing – Actually running your Business Continuity Plan, including your staff, planning, a documented checklist, and a full boot of your recovery environment, to prove your plan works and guarantee its performance.

Right Hand provides top-tier security for your data. We take the time to design a plan that can handle the worst-case scenarios, and we run regular tests to provide the assurance that our strategies are being effective.

Business Continuity Solutions In Pittsburgh, PA & Western PA

Storms – Human Error – Hackers – What Do I Do to Protect My Data and Workflow?

Backup, Disaster Recovery, and Business Continuity for Pittsburgh Area Businesses

Is My Data, Workflow, and Business at Risk? – How Can Business Continuity Services Help?

Businesses face threats from many fronts every day. Since most companies are highly technology dependent and bound by strict compliance regulations, protecting your data is essential.

Though you can react in the face of a problem, a proactive approach is the better way to keep your IT systems secure.

Your IT environment could be sidelined by any number of events including natural disasters, cyber attacks, hardware failure, or even just good old-fashioned Mother Nature deciding she doesn’t want to play nice in the sandbox.

If you’re unprepared, the consequences could leave your business crippled.

Right Hand’s Business Continuity Services ensure that the critical IT systems of your business are backed up and can be spun up at another location if needed.

What is Included in a Business Continuity Strategy?

  • Business Continuity Consulting – We assess your business practices to create a business continuity plan which factors in all security measures necessary to protect your IT assets and data for the future.
  • Regular Onsite Backup – Right Hand manages all of your onsite servers and IT assets through regular backups.
  • Scalable Services –Need storage space? We’ve got you covered. Best of all, you can grow your services as your business grows, ensuring you never pay for things you don’t use.
  • Customized Backup and Disaster Recovery – Every business is different. We make sure that every IT-related element of your workflow can be accessed in the event of an emergency.
  • Image File Backups – With image files sent to our data center on an hourly basis, you can rest assured that your important photos, documents, and other data are safe and recoverable.
  • Offsite Cloud Backup – We use cloud data centers to provide additional backup storage for your important data. As an added layer of protection, all files are also encrypted.
  • Cloud Virtualization Services – Virtualization via the cloud gives you easy access to your files anywhere in the world at any time.
  • 24/7 Backup Monitoring & Validation – Ensuring that your data and systems are stored properly, preventing loss or contamination and ensuring a speedy recovery if necessary.
  • Regular Testing – Actually running your Business Continuity Plan, including your staff, planning, a documented checklist, and a full boot of your recovery environment, to prove your plan works and guarantee its performance.

Right Hand provides top-tier security for your data. We take the time to design a plan that can handle the worst-case scenarios, and we run regular tests to provide the assurance that our strategies are being effective.