More often than ever before, we are being hit with stories revolving around breaches in a company’s data security. It may seem that only large companies and organizations like Facebook and major political parties can be hit by hackers or other mal-intended individuals. The truth is, companies of all sizes can use a strong data security program.

Protection Matters More Than Size

A security program is a plan that your company sets in place to ensure the integrity of all of your data, files, and other sensitive information. For large companies, there are obvious advantages to protecting the massive amounts of data stored on their networks and servers. Smaller companies also have a wealth of data and information that can be used for no-good. Think about things such as credit card information, personal customer or client details, and even your company’s own financial information. Allowing this kind of data into the wrong hands can be detrimental to your business and the trust your customers place in you.

Your security plan may be a few pages long or hundreds of pages long. There are a plethora of factors that can play into the size and scope of your security plan. The important thing is that you think about all aspects of your business security and develop steps to protect all data and information assets.

The Overlooked Information Security Issue

Even with the attention and awareness that has been placed on information security, there is still one area that is often overlooked and accounts for a large portion of data security breaches. Your company’s file and data transfer security is likely at greater risk than you realize. Data or file transfer encompasses a variety of areas from emails to physical media and backups. There is a lot of information that gets lost without a properly managed file transfer solution, but it is possible to control your file transfer and protect your client and business information.

When looking for a managed file transfer solution, there are some factors that should be taken into consideration:

• Your managed file transfer solution must be easy to use. If it gets too complicated, the human factor will likely end up causing issues along the line.

• Notification of any issues via email or other secured source is a must. Similarly, your managed file transfer solution must be equipped with extensive tracking of security issues.

• It must be able to handle large file sizes coupled with large file quantities. Be careful that you are protecting ALL of your file transfers and data or you may as well not be protecting any.

Keep Evolving and Moving

Criminals will not stop attempting to steal your sensitive data, which means you cannot stop trying to protect it. Data security is not a set it and forget it situation. Instead, your company has to always be looking out for the next weakness in your security plan. Updating your security plan at regular intervals is essential to true file and data security.

We all have sensitive data. It doesn’t matter if you are a multi-national enterprise company or a Mom-and-Pop shop in rural America, your customers trust you with their information. Make sure you are forming strong security plans to protect each and every customer.