Digital marketing businesses rely on technology extensively to get the job done. The last thing you want is for a hacker to damage your business. It’s urgent to make sure your internet security and data protection are top-notch. That’s where cyber services, password managers and data theft prevention are vital.

The Importance of Digital Security for Marketing Agencies

When it comes to data security, many professionals imagine huge corporations that safeguard consumer credit card information or develop cutting-edge products. They don’t think of small-to-medium businesses such as marketing firms. Unfortunately, digital threats are present everywhere online, and they can affect any business regardless of its size or focus.

Think about all the information your company handles. You maintain a history of completed projects for your clients, along with market research that helps you with your work. This work likely represents thousands of hours of dedication. You’ve had to work hard to build up a good relationship with each of your clients.

Now imagine what would happen if someone pushed a button and deleted each piece of data on your business’s computer system: all of your customer contacts, all of your style guides and preferences and all of your contracts and agreements. The results would be catastrophic.

The Need To Protect Your Company Processes

In addition, marketing agencies rely extensively on digital tools, from expert software to telework platforms. Many businesses have several teams coordinating externally and uploading projects for collaboration via the cloud. Hacks, phishing attempts and unauthorized intrusions can interfere with these systems.

That’s the other half of data risks that many business owners don’t expect. Not only can hacking hurt your company in terms of lost data and damaged hardware, but it can also force your team’s production to grind to a halt.

How can you meet deadlines if your essential tools are missing or your team can’t communicate effectively? How can you balance your responsibilities to your customers while you’re also trying to figure out if your business’s financial information was compromised?

These topics highlight the importance of smart data theft prevention and good online security. Put simply, a good defense is your best offense in the war on hackers. The good news is that with modern preventative security tools, it’s possible to keep your business protected. That way, you never need to worry about these difficult questions.

Key Steps for Digital Security

Make sure your business is protected on at least two fronts: your software and your security verification. That means protecting against intrusions, viruses, phishing attacks and ransomware from the internet.

Investing in a top-notch antivirus suite isn’t a waste of money. You can think of it as the digital version of hiring an expert electrician when it’s time to upgrade your building’s wiring. High-quality solutions cost more than free or cheap alternatives, but in terms of value, they deliver more than what they cost.

Of course, having excellent tools is only effective if you use them. A good practice is to set antivirus programs to perform scans each time you update. Also, make sure operating systems are kept up to date.

Other essentials include firewalls, virtual private networks and data encryption. These systems make it much harder for hackers to force their way into a network.

Team Security

Keeping your files secure is more challenging when projects require coordination between many employees, especially when they work from separate locations. The tricky part is that you need enough protection to prevent unauthorized people from accessing your files, but you also need to make it easy for your employees to work on different projects smoothly.

Generally speaking, the solution requires some level of customization for your business. Every digital marketing firm has specific needs, so a cookie-cutter layout just doesn’t fit right.

First, you have to ensure that all employees are on the same page in terms of security principles, such as where they can access team documents from and on which devices.

It’s necessary for every device used for work to have a high-quality firewall to block intrusion attempts. This is easy at your place of business, but difficult to monitor when employees work on PCs and laptops at home.

Things are even more challenging where mobile devices are concerned. Some people forget to lock their phones or don’t even have security measures in place to begin with. Any confidential information stored on their device would be vulnerable. This is why some organizations use special platforms designed specifically for their business, with VPN options and additional security for mobile.

Secure Backups for Your Business

Back up key business information. If you need it to keep your company operating, back it up on an external hard drive or cloud server (or both). At the very least, this is something you should do every week. Protect the devices with a secure password.

Many businesses find it smart to back up customer databases, spreadsheets, financial files, tax documents, accounts receivables and payables, contracts and word processing documents. Electronic documents can be highly secure because they allow for multiple security layers; you can protect PDFs of important contracts or financial records with a password, and also protect the folders they’re stored in with additional passwords.

Online Security Best Practices

Sometimes, the greatest security risks come from human error. To keep your business secrets safe, you need to make sure only authorized personnel can access them. Take the time to train your employees on smart security habits, such as locking computers every time they step away from their desks and never clicking on email links, especially ones that look like they come from coworkers.

Give each employee their own user account and password. This allows you to partition access to files. For example, team members working on one project can only access files related to that project. In the event of a breach, the vulnerability remains small.

Do not give administrative access to new employees. Prevent any department except for accounting from gaining access to company credit cards or bank accounts. Keep access to financial records and essential business documents to only a handful of trusted people.

You can manage your digital marketing business online. You just need the right tools and expert assistance to do it safely.