• April 10, 2022March 27, 2023
• admin

While you might only think data protection applies to large organizations, it’s essential for small businesses, as well. Hackers and other bad actors regularly target small businesses to steal sensitive data, making data protection a must-have for any organization. When you implement data protection strategies, you can ensure you maintain an excellent reputation, avoid operational downtime, keep your data secure, and guard your business against legal action.

Find out more about what data protection is and why it matters. You might also be interested in learning about the top risks of not having data protection and some of the top tips for implementing data protection strategies at your business.

What is data protection?
Data protection refers to the various processes and mechanisms designed to protect an organization’s data from compromise, loss, theft, and corruption. By implementing data protection, organizations guard themselves and their customers against identity theft and phishing scams. Some of the main types of data organizations aim to protect include:

Email addresses
Phone numbers
Names
Medical information
Bank and credit card details
Home addresses
Data protection is designed to protect an organization’s data from compromise, loss, theft, and corruption

Why does data protection matter?
With the increasing reliance on the cloud and online transactions, many organizations are handling more and more data. Bad actors, outside an organization and inside of it, constantly look to compromise an organization’s data security for their own ends. Data breaches often aim to steal information from a company, selling it to others, or using it to commit acts of fraud.

Since organizations handle a great deal of personal identifiable information (PII) from their customers, employees, and stakeholders, a data breach can do a great deal of harm. Some of the most potentially damaging effects come from data breaches that steal especially sensitive PII, such as social security numbers, driver’s licenses, and passports. If a bad actor gets their hands on this information, they can do a significant amount of damage to an organization and anyone who’s given the organization data.

Data protection for small businesses is especially important because data breaches and losses can end up costing a significant amount of money. When a company doesn’t protect its sensitive information and allows data breaches to occur, it can take a reputational hit. As a result of this lost reputation, an organization can see a drop in revenue from dissatisfied customers. Organizations can also suffer from fines for not complying with security regulations, leading to financial strain a small business may not be able to handle.

Data breaches and losses can end up costing a significant amount of money

What are GDPR and CCPA compliance?
Whenever you look into business data protection, you’ll likely hear about the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These regulations make it so consumers have the right to know what information an organization is collecting from them, what information is sold or shared, and who their data is sold to or shared with. Both the CCPA and GDPR apply to small businesses, so it’s important to comply with them.

What is PII?
PII covers various kinds of information, such as:

Email addresses
Personal identifiable financial information
IP addresses
Mailing addresses
Social Security numbers
Phone numbers
Login IDs
Social media posts
Since organizations handle various kinds of PII, they have to protect this information from falling into bad actors’ hands. Typically, when a data breach occurs, the hacker will attempt to use stolen PII against the organization or sell it to others.

When a data breach occurs, the hacker will attempt to use stolen PII against the organization or sell it to others

Typically, PII is separated into two categories — non-sensitive PII and sensitive PII. Non-sensitive PII refers to information people can quickly collect from public records, such as zip codes, ethnicity, or gender. Since it’s non-sensitive, data breaches that only unearth this data typically don’t result in much damage to individuals. In contrast, sensitive PII, such as social security numbers, passports, and driver’s licenses, can all do significant damage to individuals when it’s stolen.