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What Sterling Heights Residents Need To Know About Information Security
Imagine the shock of coming into work one morning to find yourself locked out of the company accounting software. You’re immediately flooded with regrets for not having taken even just a few simple security measures that might have prevented this. Is the data gone? Is the company bank account being drained? What happens next?
Communities like Sterling Heights are finding themselves the victim of data theft as hackers move away from the big cities and into the less protected suburbs. They simply are not prepared with the level of information security needed in today’s world.
Information security is the act of preventing illegal access, use, revealing, interruption, deformation, investigation, or distortion of information. In layman’s language, it means breaching information by an unauthorized person or entity either through physical or electronic means. Information security is vast in several areas including cyber forensics, mobile computing, and even social media.
3 Foundational Elements of Information Security
CIA (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability).
Confidentiality – involves the habitual concealing of proprietary information from access by unauthorized persons, companies, or process. For instance, you enter your password to access company payroll records, and in the process of logging in someone watches you. Or someone sees that your passwords are kept on sticky notes in your top drawer. This is perhaps the easiest way for someone to gain access as it requires no hacking – someone with your password can generally walk right in.
Integrity – means the maintenance of consistency in the accuracy and completeness of your data. For example, when your information remains intact and can’t be edited by an unauthorized person without your consent. Hacking and security breaches are not always obvious; data can simply be changed in a small yet significant way that could go undetected for years. Imagine discovering someone on the other side of the world had quietly added themselves to the distribution list for your bank statements?
Availability – this means the handiness of information for access and utilization of by an authorized person. Imagine an employee leaves the company and you discover they had been storing files on their personal drive rather than the company’s servers. Not only is this data no longer available to you, but is out of your control. A few simple steps could have prevented this, but for a company in a seemingly safe community like Sterling Heights, Michigan, information security gets overlooked. So what can you do?
Cybersecurity for Sterling Heights Michigan Businesses
Although it may require only a few simple steps to prevent data theft and hacking, many businesses with no security processes or culture of security don’t know where to start. It starts with a phone call. To a business owner, information security might be complex, but an information technology company such as Right Guy IT will know exactly where to start and what level of security is needed. Right Guy IT can not only protect you from hackers, but train you and your employees how to recognize and prevent threats. Can you afford to be hacked?
