What is it and why does your business need it?
Encryption is the process of encoding digital data so that only those authorised can access it. Encryption effectively “renders the original data unintelligible and the process cannot be reversed without access to the correct decryption key.” (General Data Protection Regulation , 2018)
This digital data can be anything from a document or an email to a database of individuals. Encryption serves to protect the confidentiality of this data, therefore allowing us to:
1. Authenticate the origin of the data
2. Ensure the contents of the data have not been changed
3. Prevents the creator of the data denying responsibility
Why encrypt data?
Quite simply, to prevent important information from being accessed by those who are unauthorised. Under the GDPR regulation, you must ensure that personal data is processed in a manner that ensures its security, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage, all of which could result in cyber-attacks, malware, disasters or lost devices, amongst a host of other scenarios.
The benefits of encryption on your business
With the new GDPR laws in effect, it is vital you encrypt your business data. As a result, if your data is lost or stolen, the information will still be safe and secure. With our Managed IT services, we help ensure that all your compatible devices are fully encrypted and secure.
We backup all customer data to our own encrypted servers, rather than datacentres. This ensures your critical data is secure and accessible in the event of an emergency should we need to restore it manually.
As a top company providing small business IT support, we have the technology, knowledge and experience alongside our Director and GDPR practitioner Ragnar, to help keep your business secure.
Encryption and GDPR
Encryption is recommended by the ICO, as a method to achieving GDPR compliance. But what is GDPR compliance? The GDPR sets out data security principles including: fairness, lawfulness and transparency; purpose limitation; data minimization; data quality; security, integrity and confidentiality. Read more about GDPR here.
Some further measures to ensure GDPR compliance include:
• Pseudonymizing of personal data
• The ability to ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity, availability and resilience of systems and services processing personal data
• The ability to restore the availability of and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident
• A process for regularly testing, assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of technical and organisational measures for ensuring personal data processing security
Why your business needs Unlimited IT Support
Every Unlimited IT Support customer benefits from the encryption audits we run as standard. Not only do we ensure business-critical data is safe and secure, we help businesses thrive by optimising technology. Look at what else your business can gain from our Unlimited IT Support here.