By Joe Balsarotti
Seems every tech article nowadays is about the liabilities of technology. Hacking, lost data, damaged online reputations, and the legal and ethical ramifications of technology and stored data.
So, it seems appropriate to delve into how to, if not minimize, at least mitigate the liabilities that the digital world has created for all businesses large and small.
Does your business host its own website?
Unless you have private components to yours site for vendors or customers to access your database, there is no reason to host your own site. Cutting off that entry point to your network goes a long way in reducing your risk. Besides, except for keeping internal I.T. people busy, there’s not much upside in hosting your own website. Outsource it to professionals after you’ve done due diligence to make sure there are backups, redundant sites, and uptime guarantees. In short, let specialists deal with it.
How about email, why would you host your own?
Forget the security concerns for a moment. Since over 95 percent of all email transmitted gets rejected at the server as spam, that means that 95 percent of the Internet ‘pipe’ you are paying for is wasted on trash. Find a reputable provider whose focus is on providing email. After all, there are very few individual businesses with access to datacenters across the country for redundancy, battery and generator backup, communication lines from multiple providers, and 24/7 staffing, but quality email providers do.
Granted, going with one of the ‘big guys’ for email or hosted Exchange has its own set of issues as they are larger targets to hackers. If someone breaches your in-house email server, however, you don’t really have recourse, but if a multimillion or billion dollar provider gets breached, they will have far more resources to bring to bear on restoring service and recovering damaged or lost data. Plus, it’s a fair bet that lawyers will be lined up to help you recover compensation for any losses you suffer.
Passwords, remember them?
One of the easiest ways to minimize liability with technology doesn’t cost a penny, but it is essential. ANY notebook, phone, tablet, or home PC that can access your company and/or customer data must always be password protected and should lock if unattended.
When replacing old PCs and servers, businesses generally know to keep the hard drives or get a certificate of destruction. However, the same precaution goes for those tablets or phones. Getting a couple bucks for trading in an old phone or tablet turns into a really bad deal when the tablet or phone falls into the hands of foreign hackers and organized crime, who buy old electronics by the pallet, looking for data off of hard drives.
Save yourself some headaches and reduce your company’s risk in the digital world by getting a certificate of destruction for every device that you dispose of.
I welcome your questions or comments at businesstech@software-to-go.com
Joe Balsarotti is president of Software To Go and is a 35-year veteran of the computer industry, starting back in the days of the Apple II. He served three terms as chairman of the National Federation of Independent Business’ (NFIB) Missouri Leadership Council. He was chairman of the Clayton, Missouri Merchant Association for a dozen years, chaired Region VII of the Federal Small Business Regulatory Fairness Board and currently serves on the Dealer Advisory Panel of the ASCII Group, an organization of over 1000 independent computer and technology solution providers in North America.