Part of running a successful digital agency is ensuring that employees, freelancers, and clients enjoy the same robust levels of security and privacy.
This is important for preserving your brand reputation and for complying with relevant data protection regulations.
Unfortunately, the cyber threats faced by businesses are only growing, and breaches can leave all sorts of sensitive information exposed.
With that in mind, here are some tips to make your digital agency environment more secure and resilient.
Actively monitor for issues
Vulnerabilities can arise in all areas of your IT infrastructure, even if you have invested in solid protection. This means you cannot afford to wait until it is too late to respond to a breach but should instead be proactive in preventing them.
Using monitoring tools like those found at https://www.sentryone.com/sql-server/sql-server-monitoring can be helpful in this regard, for example. The best solutions will automatically alert you to everything from performance problems to potential cyber-attacks, so you will be in a better position to optimize and defend your resources.
Train staff
Hackers often exploit employees’ gullibility to circumvent business security systems successfully, so it pays to implement rigorous, regular training to prevent this.
Phishing emails are an especially effective entry point for fraudsters, which means your team members need to know how to recognize phony messages and steer clear of them.
Ideally, you will have a spam filter in place to prevent malicious emails from getting through in the first place, but if some slip past your defenses, then a well-trained workforce will stand you in good stead.
Use strong passwords on social media
As a digital agency, you will invariably be responsible for a whole host of social media accounts representing your brand and those of your clients.
If these accounts are hacked, they can be majorly embarrassing and damaging, so using strong and unique passwords is vital.
Also, be careful when it comes to controlling access to these accounts, and update passwords regularly so that they are only known to those who need them, rather than being available to former employees and freelancers who have since moved on.
Consider BYOD implications
The rise of bringing your device (BYOD) culture, in combination with the dramatic increase in remote working, has left businesses of all kinds struggling to adapt to the new data security landscape.
When employees are using personal laptops and smartphones for work purposes, this can leave data outside your sphere of influence, which is a security concern.
As such, regular reviews of your BYOD policies can highlight weaknesses, while training and clear documentation will bring staff up to speed with what is expected of them.
In short, you should do whatever you can to keep mission-critical information safe in your digital agency environment, both for the sake of your business and for that of your clients.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.
