Pay Now or Pay Later: Strategies to Addre Data Breaches in SMBs

A colleague recently sent me a link to an article titled, Data Breaches Threaten Small Businesses: Ponemon by Nathan Eddy, highlighting the risk of data breaches faced by smaller companies. The statistics are staggering. Smaller organizations often have limited budgeted budgets for IT, but does this make their data somehow less important or less prone to data breaches? The clear answer is no, and so the issue of data protection and security transcends company size. As an SMB, you must carefully consider how you store, maintain and protect your information or else face serious risk of data breach or theft.

According to the Ponemon Institute, 55% of small business across the U.S. had some form of data breach and 53% had multiple data breaches. Wow, 50%+ is a scary percentage. If you are reading this and work in a smaller environment, the odds are better than 2:1 that you will experience an event. According to the article, the most common causes are challenges such as stolen laptops, smartphones and storage media or even procedural error. As an SMB, you must be cognizant of these risks and develop policies and strategies to address them. Here are some basic elements to consider:

Limit data access As data moves either inside of laptops, smartphones or even backup tapes, you are at risk of these devices getting lost or stolen. Encrypting data will help prevent unauthorized access to information. Other important considerations include strong password policies and remote management options to allow for remote data deletion.

Remember that IT matters When you are a small company and are trying to do many things simultaneously, it is easy to forget about the criticality of IT. I have been in many meetings where people say, IT is not strategic for my company, thus implying they pay little attention. The statistical numbers above highlight the folly of this position. All companies must maintain a basic focus on IT and ensure that they have the appropriate policies and procedures in place to minimize the risk of data breaches.

Backup When facing data breaches, you need to address the immediate breach issue, but also need to consider what information was lost and how to get it back. Having a comprehensive backup strategy both for datacenter and your remote workers can address this situation by ensuring that you have a consistent and reliable protection strategy.

There is no silver bullet to address the issue of data breaches in SMBs and as Ponemon's research shows, the problem is rampant. The solution is not a simple one, but really starts with awareness. SMBs are at an even greater risk than large companies and must invest accordingly. Of course, in today's cash strapped world, it can be hard to find the money, but the reality is that there can be significant cost for a breach as well. Thus, the real question for SMBs is Pay now or pay later.

LINK:	http://blog.ironmountain.com/2013/data-backup-and-recovery/pay-now-or-...
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