IT Security Blog

Changing Providers: Study, Learn and then Decide

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Being in an online business or introducing your business to the online world may seem risky, most especially because not all make it in the industry or it may seem risky if you are simply a newbie in the online world. One of the scariest issues that business owners normally face when incorporating business online is the privacy issues.

However, it is rare this days to have a hacked system or site and make permanent damages to the company’s system or website, most especially because of the constant and consistent restrictive measures that server provider provide for their online clients. There’s always a solution to hacking problems. However, there are still present issues that online clients should face more than the security issues.

If there is one problematic issue business owners may have premium link building should be the least. A problem online business owners face today is moving from an original provider to the next. One particular example of problem is the migration of data. It is a crucial move for any business owner to move any online data to another provider. A thorough study before any final decision is vital and should not be taken lightly as these may jeopardize business operation including data loss and worse, sales loss. Considering these important tips might save your business from any losses.

If you have been with an online provider for 10 years or more and did a lot of customization, then you may want to think twice before saying a go to the next provider. You are not just making your business loose one leg, but one arm as well. If there is an argument between you and your first provider, seat down and settle things in a way that you will not end up the victim. Agree on a takeover terms in such a way that your company data will be smoothly handed over to the next provider with minor to no change.

Get the best IT adviser from your company or hire a specialist not a freelancer. An open conversation and a consistent up-to-date exchange of information should be a priority between the company’s IT personnel and the manager or the owner because this will enable the owner to understand the pros and cons, thus allowing him to make a final decision.

Test before you get. Precautionary measures is necessary prior going to the next level. Being able to test the other provider’s product and services will enable you to weigh if moving from one to the next is a wise decision.

Backups: Be Ready for Anything

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Backing up your files is a routine practice that most people fail to appreciate at times. Well for one, it takes an instance where sudden system malfunctions or intrusions to learn the value of having properly backed up files for people to appreciate its routine. Normally, thanks to the strict and professional efforts that assigned information technology personnel, common users rarely have to worry about losing their work and saved files since these people in the front end, already make sure that any untoward intrusions or risks can even enter their computer network and workstations.

Regardless though, all computer users are encouraged to make sure that they maintain separate data backup files for security reasons. Experiencing such issues where your computer suddenly goes on the blink is a serious issue that may even lead you to cram and worry since in most cases, losing important files such as reports and documents can hamper you and your role in the standard operations of carrying out work.

So while it does seem like such an effort points to nonsense. But while that may seem the case for now, it is by no means a reason for anyone to take it easy and take backups for granted. It is a routine task and while many don’t do it regularly, such people should not leave such a task entirely to the responsibility of the IT people.

Besides, knowing how confidential some files are, being assisted once or twice is enough. But over that is already a sign of laziness and for sure is a clear sign that these people have no intentions of adding that task to their list of duties and responsibilities.

Data or Program: Which are you really Safeguarding?

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When it comes to network security, the main focus is to of course protect your IT infrastructure. But if you had a choice, which is really important; the program or the data you have gathered?

At first glance it would have to be the data for sure. Software programs can be easily modified and replaced depending on the requirements of any organization. Database protection is important since without it, companies have no basis for analysis and comparison as far as actual performance and reference for clients stored in the database is concerned. If you had to rate both, it would be data first and software second.

There are other people who put premium on software of course. But this will depend on their contingency plan better known to most IT professionals as backed up or archived data. Normally this is so basic that you don’t need to remind anyone the need to have archived historical data in cases where system crashes or intrusions may occur. There will always be scheduled backups and archiving for any program using entity since these are valued and important as far as linking all transactions and tracing revenue.

But the actual safeguarding of these two IT elements is how you expose it. There are usually policies governing the actual level of exposure such as net presence or the use of external storage devices like CDs and floppy disks. Normally, these are discouraged but knowing people who are hard headed today, some of them still ignore these policies and even get away with it.

Choosing which data encryption to use

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Harddisk-head.jpgOften we think of security in terms of applications that can be used to safeguard our data, but there can always be different approaches to the same problem. Encrypting the data in your hard drive may be the key to keeping it safe in these days of laptop theft.

Data encryption for hard drives can come in two forms. You can either use a software to encrypt your data, or have a drive that required password identification before gaining access to the files inside. The first method can be performed with a selection of open source and licensed software. The files are protected even when the Operating System is not on. This works in different ways. Some software create a virtual drive inside the hard drive to store the data. the virtual drive will take up an allotted amount of space in the drive, but it cannot be accessed unless the password or set of passwords have been given. This type of data encryption can also be performed on drives that had no form of security encryption originally like the computer you’re currently or even thumb drives.

Hard drives with encryption has been available for the past year, most often in the form of external drives that can be brought to different places and handled by more than one user. These hard drives operate with full encryption, where the data in the whole disk is encrypted. Some of them combine password identification with biometrics to give double security to the files inside them. These drives come with a chip containing special software that does the decrypting and encrypting without taking too much time. The problem with this method is that if the password is forgotten, the data can’t be recovered. Seagate had recently announced that they will be shipping hard drives with an improved full disk encryption they call DriveTrust on January. These two methods will protect the files in the hard drive, and it’s only a matter of choosing which suits you best.

[tags]data encryption, data, security, drive encryption[/tags]