How to protect confidential business information in 2022

Trade secrets and confidential business information are integral to business success across all industries as each tries to outdo its competition. As such, businesses need to understand the law about confidential business information and how to implement effective measures to protect this information.

1. Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements

Companies should have their employees, investors, service providers, contract workers, and third parties sign a non-disclosure agreement. This will prevent them from disclosing or distributing any confidential information they encounter while working or doing business with the company.

Employees can also sign a non-compete agreement when they start working for the company. A non-compete mitigates employee risk of competing with their employer after they stop working in the company. The agreement also prohibits employees from disclosing proprietary secrets or information to other parties after or during employment.

A non-compete agreement is necessary to keep your place in the market, and it may be signed by consultants, contractors, and employees.

2. Use Shredders and Confidential Waste Bins

Although digital data is gaining prominence by the day, some businesses still have to deal with tons of paperwork daily. If you have to get rid of sensitive documents, ensure they are shredded or thrown in a confidential waste bin. Nowadays, identity theft issues are on the rise; hence you should not risk having sensitive information getting into the wrong hands.

When you delete your files from the recycle bin, a copy remains on your hard drive and be accessed by a person with advanced tech skills. You can prevent this by digitally shredding your files or using a third-party application to overwrite your hard drive with unsystematic data.

3. Control Access to Information

Any information stored digitally should have controlled access through encryption, firewalls, and passwords. This is especially essential when the information is in smaller storage devices that can easily be misplaced. The passwords used to control access to confidential data should be changed often and secure.

Choose hard-to-guess passwords that entail a combination of lower and upper case letters and special characters.

4. Use Private Networks

There has been an increase in remote work setups, increasing cyber-attacks. When your employees work remotely, you have no internet network control. This is a dangerous situation for your information security since malicious people using the same network can access and monitor your online activity.

You can eradicate this risk by using VPNs to encrypt your connection and hide your identity from the shared network. If you can’t access a VPN, you can choose a password protected individual hotspot to reduce the possibility of hackers looking into your online activities.

5. Train Your Employees on Security Awareness

Your employees are the weakest link to safeguarding confidential information for your business. About 95% of cyber security attacks are due to human errors like employees accessing their email and social media accounts through their work computers. You can organize employees’ bi-yearly security awareness seminars to sensitize them on how to secure business information and identify a potential security risk or threat.

source https://www.jbklutse.com/how-to-protect-confidential-business-information-in-2022/