Since the news broke regarding Edward Snowden and his disclosure of various classified documents to media outlets across the US, it would only seem logical for IT departments to really up their game when it comes down to knowing who they’ve got onboard.

However, Snowden’s ability to use particularly unsophisticated methods when accessing these documents will always have business leaders concerned. So what can you do to protect your business from the unnerving possibility of data leakage? Here are three essential steps you can take to ensure it doesn’t happen to you.

Prepare Yourself For the Worst Case Scenario

The best way to start out is to presume that all the electronic devices associated with your business are entirely unsecure. Computers are capable of remembering things for eternity, so any slip up with an unsecured network or any type of integration with online methods of the outside world is only going to enhance the damage caused by data leaks.

Know What’s Confidential  

You don’t really want to be labelling the instruction manual for the drinks machine as confidential, so why bother doing it? If you end up overusing the word confidential then you risk the genuinely confidential data becoming as important to your business as the toilet directions.

Don’t Make Confidential Documents Free to Read

If employees are free to read all the data they’re not allowed to write, you may as well let them write it anyway. There’s often quite a lot of focus on not letting employees manipulate data but in reality they shouldn’t even have access to documents that won’t have any bearing on their job.

Pronetic are experts in offering IT solutions to businesses in the South of the UK, so why not get in touch today to learn more about how we can help you?