You may already be backing up your company data to a secure offline database and ensuring your virus definitions are up-to-date. However, is there anything else you can do to ensure that your company data stays secure? The answer is yes, and it’s easier to do than you may think.

The Data Safe

Any data protection strategy should include a way to secure physical data. Employee and customer records, as well as financial information and backups existing on CDs, tapes and other media are all examples of physical data that must be protected.

One way to protect these kinds of data is to look into the purchase of a data safe. These products, designed specifically for the protection of physical data, are available in several models and with various levels of protection.

Data Safes for Water Protection

Water damage may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about your company’s physical data. However, in the event of a flood or structural damage that causes water to enter your facility where physical data is stored, a water safe can be worth its weight in gold. Waterproof data safes are available with several different features. Some, for example, will protect data from the water from fire sprinklers, while others work to keep contents dry should the safe become fully submerged.

Data Safes For Fire Protection

In the event that fire strikes your facility, placing your data into a fire safe can allow you to resume business more quickly. Just as with waterproof safes, fireproof safes exist in several protection levels. Generally, the best fire protection is available with safes that can offer fire resistance of 30 minutes or more. Of course, the longer amount of time that a safe claims to keep data protected from fire, the better. Two-hours of resistance will cost more, but will keep data safe for longest.

Lock Up Data In A Different Way

If you’re looking to keep your company data secure from internal security breaches, an audit lock can present a viable solution. Biometrics technology has been integrated into many kinds of audit locks installed on cabinet handles. Any physical contact with these handles is recorded and stored for a complete audit trail. Audit locks are a valuable security solution because they allow each access point to be individually secured.

Avoiding Data Damage

Even the best protection solution can place physical data at risk. How? One example is storing data in a safe that has not been drop tested. Safes can fall from great height in cases where fire has weakened the structure of a floor. Unless data bearing devices are stored in a drop-test safe, it may not survive a fall. Whether looking for fire or water protection, it’s important to also ensure a safe has been drop-tested to a height of around 9m.

Another way to avoid data loss is to ensure all areas of a storage facility are in good working order. For example, a damaged cabinet that contains an audit lock will not keep data safe. Regular inspections of all of the cabinets, safes and other methods used to store data will ensure continued security.

When your physical data storage has reached the end of its useful life, its safety must still be protected. Discarded media devices can be easily accessed unless they are properly stored and disposed of. Absolute IT’s range of data protection solutions include our secure office boxes. Call us with your preferred size, and we drop the box at your location. Then, simply fill it with your unwanted storage media and when full, call us for retrieval and destruction. We provide a full asset report for all items processed via our data sanitisation and destruction services to ensure full regulatory compliance.