Having legitimate consent is only half the battle - 5 ways to protect your data

A recent survey showed that nearly one in five (17%) of companies admitted they are still unsure as to what the benefits are of being GDPR-compliant. Many businesses have still not gained consent and yet are sending marketing emails. More so, some do not have the proper opt-out policies in place and many are still struggling to make sense of the point of GDPR at all. These businesses are at risk of receiving a fine equating up to 4% of their annual turnover, a huge problem for the sole trader, man-on-the-street style business. But is this putting them at risk of more than a fine?

Worryingly, business cyber-crime is up by 63% compared to 2017 and as former Cisco CEO John Chambers once said, “There are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those who don’t yet know they have been hacked.” It is part of daily life, a new wave of criminal activity and one businesses need to protect themselves against. The most common types of cyber-attacks are malware, phishing, SQL injection and ‘Man in The Middle’ attacks but without proper security in place, any of these cyber-attacks could be imminent. With no GDPR compliant policies in place, companies could soon find their sensitive customer data is at the hands of a cyber-criminal as well.

With small to mid-size businesses being the most common target, try investing in knowledge with these top five simple and cost-effective ways to protect your data.

1 - Phishing knowledge. Sending out fake phishing emails is a policy many companies are now adopting, making staff aware of the dangers of opening attachments from unfamiliar sources could protect your business.

2 - Passwords and 2 factor identification. With 30% of Brits using the same password for their email account as other online accounts, having a personal account hacked could lead to a company breach as well. Ensure all staff are made aware of the phrase ‘longer is stronger.’ Use characters, symbols, numbers anything other than Password1 - make those hackers lives hard!

3 - Not using public WiFi. This should go without saying. Shadowing, side jacking and firesheep make public WiFi easy fodder for hackers.

4 - Be aware of social media. Posting on social media is never secure and anything you put on there can be obtained by a hacker. Once you have ‘tagged’ yourself into work with a few colleagues’ names, hackers have this information and if they have your social media password, it’s then not too much of a leap to get into your personal emails, your work emails, your calendar, anything.

5 - Invest in cyber security. Making the leap to invest in cyber security is often a big financial ask for small businesses, but it is essential and could save you thousands in the long run.

Is your cyber security policy up to date?

If you are concerned with the efficiency of your current cyber security policy, need some advice regarding your consent management or are interested in learning about our data protection management software, please get in contact with our knowledgeable team.


Attached Media


About ConsentEye

Paul Tarantino founded ConsentEye in 2017 after seeing many Enterprise businesses spending double digit millions of pounds building their own consent management/realtime decision engines to manage customer preferences in line with new Data Privacy Regulations. There was nothing available off-the-shelf at that time so with a career working at the cutting edge of IT helping global CXO's fix business issues with technology he decided to build a world class consent lifecycle management system for organisations that needed a solution fast, for an affordable price to comply with the GDPR. It is was the first GDPR compliant Consent Lifecycle Management Cloud Platform. ConsentEye enables organisations to comply with the GDPR, enables their customers to withdraw consent and increase efficiencies by centralising all consent captured across multiple systems and applications.