How secure are your systems?

Google has launched a new verification product that makes accessing Google Apps even more secure – but are your systems just as safe?

Everything you have on your networks in the workplace is penetrable. You should develop a security strategy to make sure all of that data – customer databases, advertising plans, revenue models, etc – doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

Keep all your confidential data in one location to secure it, and don’t have individual files in several different folders. Move them all to a single location.

Use passwords to protect individual documents and only give those passwords out to a small group of trusted employees. Keep changing the password every few months, and make sure it contains a mishmash of symbols and numbers that won’t be easily cracked.

You can also try keeping confidential documents on a USB stick that you carry with you at all times. Some software companies offer ways to protect that data by putting a password on the USB key itself. But be careful – you always want to have your confidential data backed up in at least two places, so you aren’t left hanging if one is misplaced or destroyed.