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The General Protection Data Regulation, coming into force on the 25th of May 2018, governs any organization that manages, processes or stores the data of citizens of the European Union. This means that while the law was passed within the EU, it applies to most major online services and businesses around the world.

If your online business has ever dealt with a customer from the EU, you will fall under its authority. In essence, GDPR represents a new global standard for business and consumer data protection. Read on for a few tips to help you remain compliant.

Stay up to date

An up-to-date business is a secure business. Ensure all the software systems you use on a day-to-day basis, along with all the operating systems of the devices you connect to our main network, are all as up to date as possible. If in the past you have turned off automatic updates due to the potential disruption they cause, work closely with your IT team to find ways such patches can be implemented on a regular basis.

Once a patch is released by a software company, delaying its installation or, worse still, doing nothing is no longer an option. Potential attackers will be fully aware of the vulnerability and looking for systems that have not yet applied it. Don’t make life easy for them.

Migrate to the cloud

If your company doesn’t have the time, the knowledge or the financial resources necessary to stay on top of all the potential security issues that can arise with its data, one solution is to move your operation to the cloud. One enormous benefit of this solution is that all your data is then held in one place, making it far easier to monitor breaches and track down their source.

Providers of cloud services rely on a first-class reputation for security to keep themselves in business. This means they are likely to be extremely proactive when it comes to implementing patches, that they will have teams of staff dedicated to nothing else than looking for breaches and will employ multiple layers of defense to keep your data safe.

Be prepared

Although the above precautions can reduce the chances of your becoming the victim of a data breach, no system is completely secure. Rather than dealing with the fallout of such a situation only after it occurs, a fundamental part of your security strategy should be the drawing up of a formal security policy for all staff that also goes into great detail about how your company will respond to an attack.

Such a document should not be completed and then shoved into the back of a drawer in order to gather dust – rather it should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis and used as a way of gauging the security needs of your business at any particular point in time. Having such a document in place can reduce the level of damage to your data and resources and help your company to recover more quickly.