The last topic for this module is The importance of Data Integrity. Most of our businesses have data that forms a foundation of our business, whether that be your contact list, a database of your client details or files on your computer.
Identifying what of all the information you use each day is critical, whether that be computer based data or data held on your digital devices helps us treat the data in a way that protects it from data loss, compromise, exfiltration, alteration, destruction or some form of hacking.
The use of backups helps protect data from loss or destruction. Protecting data from compromise (ie, a hacker gains access to the data), exfiltration (a hacker copies the data from your systems to theirs) or alteration (delete or modify specific data or insert bogus data) requires we maintain vigilance.
When you have data that includes personally identifiable details, for example if you record bank account numbers for a clients or suppliers, details such as their physical address, date of birth, or anything else that that could be used to personally identify a person - this personal data is considered at risk data when it is not handled properly, in line with it's sensitivity.
While a compromise of this data could damage your business, more significantly, it could damage the customer or supplier directly. A compromise of personally identifiable details is called a data breach.
Reducing the amount of personally identifiable data which is also at risk is a major aim of Clearstone Governance's courses and we will continue to discuss skills and policies in future modules. The future module called Protecting your data covers this topic in more detail.
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