People like giving advice. It makes them feel helpful and intelligent. However, as well-intentioned as people are, they do not always offer the correct guidance.
When it comes to compliance and data protection advice, others want to share their opinion, and feel as though they have assisted you in making the right decision. Many times, these people are just plain wrong.
“Don’t Bother with Encryption”
There is the erroneous belief that encryption simply isn’t necessary. Encryption is a security tool that translates information into code. It uses what’s called an encryption key in order to translate the data. If you have the key, you can decode it, which is called “decryption.”
Encryption is one of the most secure methods of protecting information. Governments use it to safeguard sensitive intelligence. The enterprise adopted encryption to keep proprietary secrets and other valuable data out of the hands of its competitors and criminals. When you don’t bother with encryption, you’re putting your information at risk.
“Encryption Isn’t Required to Comply with Laws”
Nowadays, it seems like there’s very little legislation which governments enact which doesn’t require organizations to encrypt sensitive data. These laws most commonly apply to health information and financial data. Lawmakers enact these regulations because they want to keep consumers’ as well as business’ most important information safe.
If you choose not to encrypt your data, you’ll most likely be violating some law regarding the protection of sensitive information. And if a hacker breaches your system, you’ll not only face hefty financial penalties, you’ll lose the trust of your clients.
“What’s the Point of Encrypting USB Sticks or SD Cards?”
Removable media is incredibly vulnerable to hackers and criminals. All someone has to do is take a USB stick or SD card out of one device and put it into another. If the data on those forms of storage isn’t adequately protected, someone who isn’t authorized can view it, modify it and transfer it somewhere else.
Encrypting information on removable media is one of the smartest moves you can make. Even if your USB stick or SD card falls into the wrong hands, whoever finds it won’t be able to do anything with it unless he or she has the encryption keys.
“You Don’t Need to Encrypt Mobile Devices”
Employees in all industries and almost all organizations use mobile devices. They are convenient, powerful and portable. Those features also make them easy and desirable to steal. Users need to secure their mobile devices as well as the information stored upon them.
While mobile device applications might not store data, they will cache it. That means that it could be exposed to unauthorized eyes if it’s not encrypted. Using hardware-level encryption will keep information safe and won’t hinder performance. In addition, encrypting data while it’s being transmitted also protects it.
How Secure is Your Network?
Are you looking for compliance and data protection advice that won’t leave you vulnerable to security breaches or heavy financial penalties because you’ve violated state or federal law? Contact WinMagic at 1-888-879-5879 to learn more about encryption solutions that protect enterprise data at the server, cloud, and device level.
