Have you ever thought about data loss? Probably not. No judgment, it’s not exactly something somebody tends to think about on an average day.
You should rethink data loss in your business. I promise if you stick with me, you will understand more about the impact of your data in just a few minutes. I’ll start with burglars, then end with toothpaste. Trust me, it’ll make sense.
First, let’s talk about your home though.
Think about physical security for your home. What does it entail? What could it entail? You probably don’t need every option available. For instance, a live, armed guard at your door 24/7 is a bit of an overstretch for a cost-to-benefit ratio. But you clearly need some sort of security, even if it’s just a door lock.
Why do you need security? Because you don’t want to lose your stuff.
You have things in your home of value. Some of it may be monetary in value like cash or jewelry. Others might be sentimental in nature like the guitar your mom gave you or your dad’s old toolbox. Some of it is an annoyance or inconvenience, as they might have stolen your prescription drugs that you need to get replaced.
There is no comparison when you walk into your home only to realize you have been robbed. There is the literal loss of missing items. You are now X dollars poorer than you were. But that’s usually not where the big pain points are. It’s the loss of sentimental items, which are priceless to you. It’s the feeling of violation that your personal space has been exposed by others, that you can never get back.
I’ve had my fair share of experiences, from my childhood home to the present. In fact, just last week I was calling the police for a neighbor who had been robbed while he was out of town.
It’s horrible. Every time.
Now let’s talk about your business, and the securities needed there.
Before even getting into it, I’m sure you know you probably need some sort of cybersecurity, because you don’t want to lose your stuff. You also know that you don’t need all of the options. That’s a perfectly true statement that I agree with.
It’s knowing what you need that is the trick.
Every business is different, and every business has a different threat model. There are best practices, but there are no cookie-cutter solutions for cybersecurity.
Why are we talking about cybersecurity? Didn’t you say this was about Data Loss?
It is, but do you know the point of cybersecurity? It’s to protect your data. To prevent data loss.
By technicality, Data Loss Prevention is only one aspect of Cybersecurity but for this discussion, I’m going to simplify it by relating them as equivalent as we focus on the impact of business data.
For instance, I have dealt with a company that designs home furnishings. Their security was off the charts. Why? Their designs were their intellectual property. Anybody could make a competing product, but their designs were their differentiator and what set them apart. They did everything they could to protect those designs. That information is their data, and without it they are out of business.
If you have a business model like that, you also need ultra-strong security to protect your data.
Chances are your business model isn’t like that though. Then you don’t need security, right?
You can feel the tension in that assumption. Again, you know you need some sort of security. That what you have could be better. But is it worth your time and energy to figure it all out?
You’ve survived this long without anything more, so maybe it’s okay on some level.
Maybe you think you are too small a business for criminals to know or care about.
Maybe you think your data isn’t that important to anybody.
Despite none of those statements being true, I’m not going to get into that. Instead, I’m going to let you in on something major you haven’t thought about.
Here’s the one not-so-secret thing you aren’t considering.
Your data is important to you. You don’t want to lose it.
Ask yourself, what would you do if you lost all of your business data right now? All of it.
Could you go on? Could you bill customers? Could you pay vendors? What happens to current projects or transactions? What happens when you have nothing?
Your business would not be able to function. Period.
We recently had a prospective customer call us because they had some issues with recovering some data, despite the fact that they have a backup solution in place. They were very concerned about the lost productivity and costs incurred caused by one loss, and the potential severe financial ramifications of another loss. They knew firsthand the impact of data loss and how it could affect their business. They were living it.
When we mentioned we saw some security issues that we were concerned with, the response was that they didn’t care about that. They expressed they didn’t have any critically confidential information that they needed to protect.
Wait, what!?
Not having just 2 documents was potentially a major catastrophe a minute ago. But the possibility of losing ALL of your documents is not?
How does that make any sense?
Stop thinking cybersecurity is something other people need. You need it too. Right now. Today.
It isn’t a mystical thing of geeks coding in a basement. It’s security for your data so you don’t lose it. So that you can run a business that is successful and profitable.
What do you do when you lose data?
A whole lot of nothing.
I know that’s not exactly what you want to hear. It’s the truth though.
Yes, this is where I should talk about the impact on your business.
How you need to protect your company reputation, regain customer trust, avoid financial losses, safeguard your intellectual property, and mitigate any operational disruptions.
I should talk about those things because those are things you should be considering as a business owner.
I should talk about those things because we provide services to handle situations like these.
I should talk about those things because they are all true.
At the end of the day though, once the toothpaste is out of the tube… well, you know the rest.
Because what do you do if you get breached? Or if an employee accidentally emails off the wrong file? Or one of a dozen other things that could easily happen, happens. Your data is now out there. You can’t undo that.
Yes, you can recover from a ransomware attack (if you’re prepared). Yes, you can restore data if your building burns down (if you’re prepared).
But it doesn’t stop exposure.
With exposure comes more risk of attacks and losses. It might complicate compliance or legal issues as well. The negative effects of exposed proprietary information and intellectual property are long-term. The hardest things to deal with are “soft” issues. Things like reputational damage. Trust from employees and customers will wane.
As I opened this discussion, the true pain of a burglary isn’t the monetary loss, but rather it’s the emotions you feel from your private space being invaded. In the same way, the true pain of data loss isn’t just the data, it’s the fact that your private data is now public. Once that is done, there’s no going back. You just need to deal with it.
This is the reality we live in. That’s why you should care about data loss and why you should take precautions now, before something happens. This is not a scare tactic. This is a wake-up call. You should respect your data’s importance and protect it above all else.
It’s also why all of our services have cybersecurity baked into them. Cybersecurity is not as much a product as it is a practice. Whatever you implement at your business should be handled in the same manner and have it a common thread throughout your infrastructure. Plan for it today. If you need help, that’s what we do best – just get in touch.