The technology world is evolving at a fast rate. This has affected how people in modern offices interact, communicate, and collaborate. Utilizing new technologies in offices helps streamline tasks, improving overall efficiency and productivity. One of the most cherished technologies in modern offices is the use of the cloud, a computing technology that allows people to store, retrieve, and share files online. By sharing documents online, you can access your files from anywhere, recover lost documents, and reduce paper costs.
But although you can reap benefits through the online sharing of files, it also exposes your business to some risks. Why? It’s because hackers and other unauthorized persons can utilize the internet to access your business files, digital assets, intellectual property, and other sensitive information. But the good news is you can implement the best file-sharing practices and protect your business from hackers.
If you’re looking to protect your business from unauthorized access, here are simple yet effective strategies to secure your file-sharing activities.
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Select The Best Email Platform
Businesses normally use email platforms to share their files. However, not all these platforms are secure. Some don’t encrypt the data before transmitting them to recipients.
Thus, before an intended recipient receives the email, it will pass through several stopovers at any point in the transmission. During this journey, your email faces several risks. First, hackers or unintended recipients may intercept your message and access and steal your data without you knowing it. Second, if the intended recipient accesses your email from an unsecured device, your data may be compromised by malware, viruses, or cyberattacks.
For these reasons, you need to find a secure private email platform so you can share business data without any worry on your part. You can achieve this by asking for referrals or reading online reviews.
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Educate Your Employees
Employees are an integral part of any business organization. They can help you accomplish daily business activities, thus growing your firm. But as they carry out their daily duties, they inevitably interact with business information. That’s why you need to educate them about protecting business data.
Educate your employees about the risks associated with mishandling sensitive company information. You need to make them understand what kind of business data shouldn’t be shared with external parties. This ensures sensitive data remain within the boundaries of your business.
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Create Strong Passwords
Another effective strategy for the secure sharing of files is creating strong passwords. This prevents any person from easily memorizing or guessing your passwords, thus avoiding unauthorized access to your business files.
For a password to be strong and effectively secure your files, it has to be more than eight characters. It also needs to have a combination of letters and numerical digits. For better protection, it would be a good idea to even include uppercase and lowercase letters. And if you want to make them even stronger, you can add nonstandard characters like a hashtag (#), slash (/) and backslash (\), caret (^), ampersand (&), and many other symbols, like punctuation marks.
On the other hand, avoid using common terms or generic names of people and places. Also, it’s best not to include your real name, account name, or company name as these can easily be guessed. You can also avoid repeating sequences like ‘abcabcabc.’
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Avoid Using USBs
Although you can use the universal serial bus (USB) to share large files, it doesn’t provide security for your business data. This is because USBs are only secure when you have them. But when you lose them, they become unprotected. So if you lose your USB and it lands in the hands of a malicious person, this individual can try to access your files and alter, steal, or manipulate your data. If you want to secure your data, it’s best to avoid storing and sharing your files using USBs.
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Utilize VPNs
The dawn of modern technology and the internet has enabled employees to work remotely. Thus, employees can now complete their tasks from anywhere outside their business office, including at home, in restaurants or parks, or in any other place that’s convenient for them.
Remote work offers several benefits to both employers and employees. It allows employers to save on office costs and frees them from the hassle of recruiting workers. And for the employees, it eliminates the daily commuting hassle, enables them to work at any time, and promotes work-life balance on their part.
Sometimes, however, remote work can come with increased use of unsecured networks, which happens especially when employees work from public places. For this reason, you want to encourage your remote workers to connect to public networks through a virtual private network (VPN).
A VPN promotes security when you share files from one computer to another. Aside from making it difficult for any unauthorized person to access the files, it also makes it impossible for hackers to steal business data. Thus, your best bet to securing remote document sharing is to utilize VPNs.
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Update Your Software And Systems Regularly
You need to keep updating your business software and system to help you share your files securely. If your system isn’t up to date, hackers can exploit its weaknesses and, thus, access your files.
Although it can be a daunting task to keep updating your business system, you can overcome this by installing automatic program updates. This enables your software or system to update itself on set dates.
You can also ensure your system is up to date by hiring a system update service provider. However, ensure you’re working with a reputable, trustworthy, and reliable provider for your peace of mind.
Takeaway
Although there are several benefits of utilizing modern technology, it can also expose your business to some risks. It’s because hackers can utilize the same technology to access your business files. However, with the right information, you can secure your files and prevent hackers and other unauthorized persons from accessing your business information.
There are various ways you can protect your file-sharing system. You can work with a secure email service provider, educate your employees, create strong passwords, utilize VPNs, avoid using USBs, and regularly update your business software and systems.
