For organizational IT leaders concerned about maximizing productivity, there’s no substitute for a real emphasis on security fortification – and in particular, a focus on data loss prevention. To empower your employees to be successful, you need to ensure they always have access to their data. Any interruption to that access could result in major issues, not only in terms of productivity but also in terms of your organization’s reputation.
It’s not possible to prevent every security threat. Cyberattacks and natural disasters can happen to anyone, often without warning – you can’t immunize your organization altogether. But what you can do is prepare your organization to respond to these events quickly, and make sure your people have alternative ways of retrieving their data and staying productive, even during times of crisis.
Consider the case of Pepperdine University, which had to deal with a major catastrophe in November 2018 when the Woolsey Fire tore through Southern California and disrupted operations at two of the school’s campuses, in Malibu and Calabasas. The enormous wildfires could have been devastating to the university – but, according to EdTech Magazine, their IT leaders were able to keep operations afloat.
“Data accessibility was key to everything during the response to the fire,” said Gerard Flynn, the school’s senior director of IT administration and client services. “We needed to know who was located at the Calabasas and Malibu campuses and make sure that they got the appropriate messages. Secondly, we needed to know which faculty needed access to teach remotely and provide them with licensing and training on web conferencing.”
What the administrators at Pepperdine knew was that preventing data loss is the name of the game. As long as your most important personnel still have access to their most important files, your staff will find a way to get by. Because the school’s IT staff was prepared for the crisis, they were able to reroute their network automatically and ensure their employees would still have reliable access.
Every organization should try to emulate this model. If your IT department can minimize data loss, your people can maximize results.
Fortunately, we at Zones provide valuable services that can help your organization do just that. We offer a wide variety of Security Assessments, all of which are designed to size up your security posture and assess your preparedness to deal with cyber incidents. Among those assessments is our Data Loss Prevention Assessment, which we use to get a comprehensive understanding of where your data resides in your infrastructure and who can access it. Once we know this, we can pinpoint potential threats to your data and figure out how best to protect you.
This is just one of the many services we provide when it comes to Security Fortification. If you’d like more information, you’re in luck – our site is loaded with it.