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A Guide To Keeping Your Online Documents Secure

The ability to create, manage, save, and access documents online is a blessing to industries the world over. After all, you can not only save your data online where it is secure; you can work collaboratively on it with others in different countries. You can show it a presentation without printing it off and carrying around several copies. The Cloud has been a godsend, but make no mistake – it can be at risk. Yes, the company itself is responsible for creating a safe and secure infrastructure to keep your data protected, but if you don’t follow up with your own security measures, hackers could gain access all the same. There are so many reasons why your online documents could be unsafe, but by following this guide, you can keep them secure.

1.    Organize Your Data Responsibly

Lost data is useless, so create a metadata policy for your entire company to follow. This way there aren’t any conflicting storage methods, and everyone should be able to find the information they need with ease. Some Cloud providers will add metadata automatically for you, for example by date, but others allow you to create folders and add tags

2.    Use Recognized Cloud Companies

Bigger companies might have more attacks focused on them, but they also have the budget and the talent to create the best security systems for your data.

3.    Know the Risks of Using the Cloud

The Cloud is not infallible. Yes, it can be much more secure than traditional methods because you have a much larger company focusing on providing you the most comprehensive security they can. In most cases, hackers who gain access to your cloud data won’t do so through the company itself, but through your endpoints or through your users. If your co-worker has used the same passwords their entire life, a hacker could gain access to this through an old account they forgot about. Then it’s only a matter of logging in. You can limit this damage by first having everyone read up on this guide from McAfee, and then by locking your data behind tiers, so users only have access to what they are working on.

4.   Use Unique, Complicated Passwords

Unique passwords are a must for everyone. Go through all your important accounts and update the password so that it is unique, complicated, and has a mixture of letters, capitals, numbers, and symbols.

5.   Encrypt Your Data

When you can encrypt your data. This applies to your stored data right up to your messages. If you don’t, outside users could gain access and use that information against you.

6.   Use Two-Step Verification

Though it has issues, two-step verification can stop unauthorized logins right in their tracks. You will want to review the privacy policy of the company’s you provide your number though, and really decide if it is worth it if they are only going to turn around and sell your number and name to marketing companies.

Staying safe online is only going to become trickier, which is why you need to stay on top of the latest news and make adjustments to your security strategy. If you don’t, your documents and livelihood could be at risk.