5 Ways to Protect Your Company’s Data During Risks

Your company’s electronic data include accounting systems, policies and procedures, plans and specifications, contracts and change orders, inspection results and punch-list tracking, employee agreements (and other human resources data), training manuals, records, continuing education tracking, databases, spreadsheets, photographs and videos, website design, e-mails and their attachments, scanned images of important documents, to name a few.

This electronic data exists on servers, desktop computers, laptops, tablets, cameras, smartphones, external drives, flash memory, and even cloud-based servers.  Various employees and subcontractors may have significant amounts of your data solely in their possession (if so, this practice must stop).

If you have not developed and strictly enforced a company-wide procedure for data backup, archive, and security, you are running huge risks. These risks can be equipment failure, loss, theft, damage, disgruntled employees and subs, human error deleting or damaging files, lost passwords, fire, earthquake, and/or water damage.  One significant event could destroy your company. In order to protect your company’s data during these risk, we have 5 ways to guard against surprises:

1. At a minimum of two times per week, your company should synchronize all portable devices to a fixed device (local or cloud) along with offsite and redundant backups. 

2. Your company should have password protection and/or encryption of all sensitive customer and employee data that could result in identity theft, which can lead to financial liability. 

3. An official of the company should know all of the data storage locations, logins, and passwords.

4. A second official should know how to access data storage locations, logins, and passwords, in an emergency.

Taking these actions will limit clean-up work to two or three days after any risk, should even a catastrophic event occur.

If you decide to use an on-line vendor to protect your company’s data, how do you choose the provider that best addresses your specific needs in a cost-effective fashion? Here are a few factors that might help you decide:

• When you need your files back, must they appear with the original file and folder date and time stamps, or is it acceptable if they instead show the date and time of either upload or download
• If you have more than 20 to 30 GB of data for your first upload, will they allow you to ship them a hard drive for your initial upload
• If you have a disaster and need all of your data back overnight, will they ship you a hard drive by courier
• Should it also provide document control and collaboration features

After your backup system is working, test it at least once a month, by downloading a few files or folders. Testing it more frequently would give you more time to fix a problem (if there is one) before a risky situation takes place. Verify the system is working as desired.

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