In the past 10 years, over 10,000 new regulations have been placed on the books by local, state, and federal agencies pertaining to the handling, storage, and disposal of confidential client, patient, and employee documents and information.
Basically, ANY company that holds social security numbers (your employees' SS#'s, for example), credit cards, or financial statements needs to comply with these regulations or the fines for not doing so can be hefty.
Want to make sure you stay on the right side of these laws? Here are a few tips that will go a long way in making sure you don't end up fined, sued, or with a bad reputation for not securing client or employee information:
- Get The Facts- If you think you are holding confidential information that should be secured, ask a qualified attorney who specializes in data confidentiality in your industry about what you must do to meet new government regulations.
- Encrypt Your Backups- Make sure your backups are at least 32-bit encryption. Encryption takes every keystroke you type and transforms it into 32 different characters, making it nearly impossible for hackers to use the information, even if they were able to steal it. Some backup solutions will even provide tighter security with 256-bit encryption.
- Have A Powerful Firewall-Firewalls keep hackers and other intruders from getting into your network and accessing important, confidential and private information. If you have the right firewall in place, it should act like a shield over your data and give you the protection you need to be in compliance with these laws.
- Lockdown Your Passwords- One surefire way to prevent any unauthorized access to privacy information and take a step toward regulatory compliance is to make sure only those who need the passwords to your computers have them.
