An expert has urged organisations to consider their information security needs upfront, rather than once a project is already underway.
Much of Dajon’s work involves handling organisations’ existing data, whether than means providing document scanning services for companies wishing to go paperless, destroying information that can’t be kept for legal reasons, or setting up offsite backups so sensitive assets aren’t at risk of being lost.
In a lot of cases, these services are sought as a matter of making sure working practices aren’t left in the past – scanning documents might be necessary because the technology simply wasn’t there to store information digitally when the organisation started up. Similarly, they might be bowing to the pressures of new regulations that render old data management systems inadequate.
However, that doesn’t always mean that organisations have best practice in mind when they’re starting a new project, regardless of the technology at their disposal. In an interview published in Computer Weekly today (October 14th), information security expert Jon McCoy has criticised companies that don’t address their data management needs upfront – claiming they stand to lose huge sums by tackling individual problems one by one instead of solving the root causes from the outset.
"Security needs to start when businesses set the goals and plan the day-to-day workflow a new IT system will accomplish," he commented.
"A dollar spent on the planning stage can be worth ten, 100 or even 1,000 times post-deployment, which is a good business reason for investing in security early."
Mr McCoy, who is the founder of application security firm DigitalBodyGuard, added that it’s equally important any upfront measures should not prove too difficult for users to get their heads around. Instead, information security should have a minimal impact on day-to-day working practices.
These points make a good case for looking for a third-party solution that fulfils your organisation’s data management needs before rushing into a new project that might require more stringent security measures than you anticipate.
Dajon’s cloud and enterprise solutions show how simple this can be. Our electronic document management service is simple and easy to use, so your employees won’t have to stray too far from their normal workflow, but it also provides unmatched security features including access rights management, encryption and auditing.