Many teams are moving to the hybrid work model, and data privacy for enterprises is essential. Take these steps to improve your company’s security profile.

In most companies, allowing employees to work from home has become a requirement in most companies. Some studies have shown that 70% of workers will be working remotely in 2025 Advanced technologies like cloud-based networks are essential. The pandemic demonstrated how resilient our technology is. However, we should also think of ways to protect it.

Data could be used as a weapon by criminals who use it to attack financial and personal health. Data privacy is increasingly described as”the “new corporate social responsibility” and data becoming the “new oil,” organizations have to handle personal data with the most significant security.

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Five steps you can take to increase data security in your business:

1. Make a list

If data is today’s oil, then just like every good refinery, you should keep a stock of it. You cannot secure things if you aren’t aware that you are the owner of it. To manage inventory better be sure that you are equipped to keep track of your security situation – particularly in the present era.

2. Be aware of your risk-taking

As we build the post-pandemic world, a lot of people are making changes that help make their personal and professional life easier. This is the perfect moment to take a step back and take a look at the situation, then determine what’s the next step.

In the midst of the scramble to change during the initial stages during the outbreak, assessments of architectural design as well as penetration tests were helpful to companies to assess their current risk-taking strategies. But now that these temporary changes could be permanent, many organizations have no idea the extent of changes as well as how the changes are interconnected and what they can do to proceed.

Knowing your company’s risk profile not only helps to address any new vulnerabilities, but also helps you identify the potential for considering the full redesign of your security and disruptive initiatives you might put off on the back burner because of changes fatigue.

3. Establish policies

As we’ve mentioned that data privacy is now a new corporate social obligation. Today, more than 80 countries around the globe have implemented one form of privacy law, and Europe’s GDPR is being the most prominent example. Gartner’s research suggests the following: about 65 percent of people around the globe will fall by the current privacy laws in 2023 which is an increase from the 10 percent.

Within the United States, some personal data is collected or sold and then used with little or no repercussions. If you establish and publish policies regarding how you handle your data, you can stay ahead of the future rules – or at the very least, manage your own personal information in a safe manner and prevent potential violations.

4. Create a Risk-aware Culture

Privacy is beginning to merge with security. It is essential that your subject matter experts know how to safeguard information in both situations. Accreditations such as ISACA’s Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer can assure that your business has experienced privacy technologist to design and implement strategies that reduce the risk and increase efficiency.

It is also important to concentrate on the end-users. As a majority of the world’s workforce won’t be working in offices this year, the training must be focused on home security. In the past, in the office environment companies had supervision and control over the technology and solutions that employed by employees and could provide security measures on premises. This new era of education will cover how employees can ensure the security of personal assets that have the same access to the network as their workplace assets.

5. Make use of tools that encourage ongoing security hygiene

A solid security strategy must include tools that allow the company to continuously advance. For example, the ability to secure data at rest as well as while in transit is essential. Think about tools for building the necessary governance in cloud environments.

One of the biggest decisions your business can take, regardless of security level of maturity is to protect your identity. If you’ve implemented identity protection, then your investment should focus on visibility of your endpoints security, management, and visibility. If your business is further along the digital transformation process security of data is crucial and you should consider raising the threshold.

Critical Best Practices for Ensuring Data Privacy

Making policies regarding data privacy isn’t easy, but it’s not difficult. These best practices will assist you in ensuring that your policies are as efficient as you can.

1- Inventory Your Data

A key part of protecting your data is knowing the type of data you own and how it is processed, and where it’s stored. The policies you have in place should specify how data is gathered and used to make decisions. For instance, you’ll need to determine how often data is checked for and the way it is classified after it is found.

Your privacy policies must be clear about the types of protection required for various data privacy levels. Policies should also outline procedures for auditing security measures to ensure that your solutions are implemented correctly.

Related content Learn more about our guide to assessment of the impact of data protection on data

2- Minimize Data Collection

Make sure that your policies stipulate that only the necessary information is stored. If you have more than you actually need it increases your risk and put an unnecessary burden for your security personnel. The reduction of your data collection will help you save the bandwidth as well as storage.

One method to achieve this is to employ “verify not store” frameworks. These frameworks use data from third parties to verify the user’s identity and eliminate the requirement to keep or transfer data from users to your system.

3- Be open to your users

A lot of users are conscious of privacy issues and will appreciate transparency in regards to how you’re using or keeping information. In light of this, GDPR has made consent from users the most important aspect of data usage and collection.

It is possible to incorporate users and their consent when you design your processes. You can do this by incorporating privacy considerations into your user interfaces. For instance, providing clearly outlined user notifications that explain the data collection process and the reason for doing so. It is also important to provide the option for users to alter or opt-out of the collection of data.