Enhance Your Data Security with 3 Protective Measures
By Russell Kraft
Enterprise Sales Executive
Read time: 3 minutes
I’m a North Dakotan. Born and raised in Grand Forks – and a proud Fighting Hawk. I grew up in this community – and I would do anything to protect it and the people who live here. In fact, as a former police officer, it’s something I know a bit about. But as I sit down to write this post about data security, I’m thinking about a different kind of protect and serve.
In the ever-increasing online landscape, more people are putting their personal information “out there.” Every minute of every day, people are sharing their data for online shopping, online insurance – or online, well, anything. What does this mean for businesses? It means that you need to be the ones protecting and serving – by keeping your customer data, and the equipment that powers it, safe.
When it comes to data security, however, there are many layers of protection that can make fully securing it difficult. But, with data center services from Midco, your business can provide a base structure for protecting your equipment – and the network that powers it.
Layer 1: Physical Data Security
We see it all the time in the movies. Someone sneaks into an organization’s server room, inserts a flash drive into the system and completely wipes it clean or copies it or embeds malware within it. Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t end well for the company. And while this may seem like a fabrication for the big screen, it is a completely plausible scenario in real life if your equipment isn’t physically secured.
Colocating your critical IT equipment in a third-party data center can protect it from organized crime groups or hackers, unauthorized employees, or even disgruntled employees by keeping it off-premises and discreetly located. Physically secure data centers are strategically designed to prevent outsiders from finding the building – in addition to adhering to 24/7 security practices that monitor every entrance/exit by authorized users.
69% of data breaches are caused by outsiders, but 34% of breaches included internal individuals.1
Layer 2: Private Network Security
Another way to secure your data is by implementing isolated data transport via private, direct network connectivity. For example, a multi-protocol label-switching (MPLS) connection ensures that your data moves securely from one point to another on a private internet connection, versus traveling on the public internet.
71% of IT professionals are seeing organizations move away from the public cloud and toward colocation and private data centers.2
Layer 3: Secure, Direct Access to the Cloud
According to AFCOM’s 2019 State of the Data Center Report, 59% of IT professionals are deploying hybrid strategies over the next year – combining the power of data center colocation with private, cloud-based storage. By creating a hybrid solution, organizations meet the demand of today’s data-driven digital market with cloud accessibility – and find peace of mind provided by data center security.
Taking it up a notch, leaders in the data center space also develop direct partnerships with major cloud providers (such as Amazon Web Services™ and Microsoft Azure™) to ensure a seamless, secure connection between the data center, the network and the cloud provider. By keeping your data transport on the private network, you’re eliminating points of friction where your data could be leaked to the public web – or where hackers could get in.
As banking and healthcare data breaches rise – among other industries – your organization must ask:
- What impact would a data breach have on our organization? Our customers?
- How long will it take to resume normal operations?
If the answers to these questions make you uneasy, it may be time to layer-on additional security with data center colocation.
Russell Kraft has worked as a sales consultant at Midco for more than a decade. He made the move from SMB to Enterprise Sales Executive four years ago and enjoys the new level of complexity that comes with partnering with large organizations. In his spare time, Kraft is an active volunteer in Midco ACTS events and plays the role of coach for his two sons. He studied criminal justice and psychology at University of North Dakota.
Russell Kraft has worked as a sales consultant at Midco for more than a decade. He made the move from SMB to Enterprise Sales Executive four years ago and enjoys the new level of complexity that comes with partnering with large organizations. In his spare time, Kraft is an active volunteer in Midco ACTS events and plays the role of coach for his two sons. He studied criminal justice and psychology at University of North Dakota.
1 Verizon: 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report, 2Q2019
2 AFCOM: 2019 State of the Data Center Report, 1Q2019