A growing business is exciting. As founders and staff, we have spent years building our business from a small idea into a business with a handful of customers. The excitement of growing our customer base is palpable as we meet more people and grow as a business.
When we are scaling fast, staff focus on all the new challenges. From hiring more staff to bigger offices, new technology, and other related matters, there are many things to consider. It is easy to allow some of the fundamental ways in which you have run your business so far to slip. Asset protection and data security are often put on the back burner as the company scales. Many founders do not realize that data breaches affect not only huge corporations with thousands of employees, but also smaller companies and startups. Protecting your hard-earned assets requires a proactive approach and a solid strategy that evolves with your company. Until then, we typically wait until something is close to happening before taking a close look.
The Hidden Vulnerabilities of Expansion
When a business is small, it is usually easy to manage the sensitive data the company collects. Typically, a few files on a local hard drive or a few files in a file cabinet in the office.
As the company grows, however, the data it collects will typically fragment across many different locations on the internet, making it very hard to keep track of where sensitive information is stored. It also makes it very hard to determine who has access to the sensitive information, which can lead to serious problems if it were to fall into the wrong hands.
As your business grows, it can quickly become unclear who has access to what data, especially as your team expands. Also, with more employees comes increased use of third-party vendors. And, it is easy to imagine how quickly data can spread across different cloud services, physical servers, and even between different physical locations.
The trouble is that as your business grows, it is easy to create digital and physical blind spots that an individual intent on harming can exploit. Growth is messy. But physical security is equally important to protecting your business’s data as your digital security measures. When you are worried about hackers breaching your company’s firewalls and gaining access to sensitive data, you may forget that the same sensitive data is likely stored in physical form as well. Quarterly reports, employees’ payroll information, and sensitive client contracts are typically stored in filing cabinets and on employees’ desks.
And what happens to that information when the office is moved? When are employees hired and let go at a rapid pace? This type of information is often left unattended and can easily be lost or stolen during this time. I can remember that during one of the office moves I was involved in, someone lost a folder containing sensitive information. It caused quite a scene until the folder was found.
People fail to realize that even the smallest of items can cause the greatest of problems.
Implementing Clear Access Controls
Set Up Data Access Controls from the Start to Protect Assets.
To begin securing your data during your company’s growth, set up your company’s information and assets by implementing a system of data access based on the principle of least privilege. This will ensure that, even if an account is compromised, the damage will be greatly reduced because the account has only been granted access to the information needed to complete the employee’s normal tasks.
Set up access to each employee’s information and data on a need-to-use basis. For example, the receptionist does not need access to financial information, so she would not be granted it. Everyone on the team should have access only to the information they need to do their jobs.
So, who has the keys to your digital vault? Time for an audit? Review who has access to what when you hire new staff and when employees change roles. Remove access to all information when employees leave the company, whether temporary or permanent. Misuse of old accounts is a major security breach. So, when was the last time you reviewed who has the keys to your digital vault? Maybe it is time to look.
Developing a Secure Lifecycle for Physical Media
Carefully manage physical media throughout its lifecycle.
All physical documents, whether hard copies or digital printouts, created within the office should have a defined retention, storage, and disposal lifecycle before their permanent destruction. As such, the humble office shredder should be in active use at the close of every working day unless circumstances have necessitated an alternative means of securing all such documents.
Leaving old documents to pile up in storage rooms can create a significant liability for a business, exposing employees and clients alike to the risk of sensitive information being lost or stolen. Not storing old documents in storage rooms is key to preventing liability. Instead, establish a document lifecycle to determine how long you need to keep them for legal compliance and your company’s operational needs.
After that, securely destroy the documents. For large volumes of sensitive documents, hire a professional to come to your location to destroy them. For example, if you have a branch, you can add storing and destroying documents at the main location in Northern California to your weekly routine, handled by a local company that specializes in secure document shredding in Oakland.
As a company with physical locations in commercial districts, professional document destruction services are the best option for handling large volumes of paper on an ongoing basis. For example, a growing company with a main office in Northern California and additional branches could schedule a weekly on-site shredding service with a local company. This service can be performed on a regular schedule to destroy all sensitive documents, such as old financial records, employee information, and client data.
Educating Your Growing Workforce
Security measures are only as effective as the people putting them into practice.
As a result, the human factor will often contribute to security incidents within a growing organization. Most often, this happens through mistakes such as accidentally clicking on a phishing email while in a hurry to finish a task, or leaving a printout with sensitive information on the office floor, only to be picked up by a client walking by on their way to their meeting.
Culture drives compliance. Security education can be integrated into the company’s culture and become a normal part of employees’ daily work. Onboarding new employees should include some level of security training, not necessarily technical in nature, but rather education on practices that safeguard information daily. Simple practices, such as identifying phishing emails, locking a computer or cube when stepping away from work, and placing printed information in the correctly designated secure bins, all protect a company’s valuable information. When employees understand the value of the information that they work with daily, they become the company’s best line of defense against security threats.
Embracing the Next Chapter Securely
While focusing on helping your small business grow and meet new challenges, you can establish a strong foundation that will support your continued growth. In short, protect your small-business assets as you grow. It is about longevity.
Organizing your digital permissions, educating your employees, and setting up a few good habits for managing physical documents will save you a world of pain in the future.
Growing a business does not have to mean exposing your company to risk. With a little planning, you can build a secure structure that will support your company’s growth and enable it to thrive for years to come.
Find more information concerning data security in this list of blogs.
