Changing My FTP File Transfer Protocol for Better Security

Take a moment to think about how much data your company gains, transfers and stores each day. In fact, the amount of data transferred daily is probably staggering. However, with so much information flowing in and out of your company, it’s difficult to maintain compliance with your data security policies across all fronts of your business.

To ensure your data is continually secure, your company should have a file transfer protocol (FTP) service in place to keep up with these data demands. If you don’t have an FTP service or one that provides maximum protection for your data, you need to carefully consider what you could do to improve the security of your organization.

The issues you should address in your company are twofold. First, change your data security policy to better protect your data. And second, ensure you have an FTP file transfer protocol service that facilitates -- or even better, one that enforces -- secure data transfers. Explore the reasons why data security is an important concern for any company, and discover the steps you should take to mitigate the risk of security failures.

Why Data Security is So Important

New data security concerns arise every hour. From increasingly advanced hacking methods to viruses that are difficult to prevent, your company faces continual threats to data security.

The reasons you should protect your data are numerous, and impact every department, employee and function of your company. While most companies realize that data security is important, they may find it difficult to dedicate resources to improving the data protections they have in place.

Below are three of the most important reasons to improve your data security.

• You must adhere to security compliance regulations. The government has established many data security compliance requirements to protect consumers and their personal information. If you fail to adhere to these regulations, you could expose your company to the risks of penalties and fines, not to mention security breaches.
• You must protect your operations. Data breaches could potentially bring your business to a screeching halt. With every breach, valuable resources like time and manpower must be used to address the issue. This disrupts your company’s productivity, impacting your bottom line.
• You need to preserve your customers’ trust. Your customers have trusted their secure data to your company, and breaking that trust could cost you business and your reputation. With an effective file transfer protocol in place, your customers can rest easy, knowing that you’ve taken steps to protect their data.

Each of these reasons demonstrates the impact of data security on your company, your customers and your profitability. That’s why it’s so important to dedicate your resources to increasing data protections.

5 Steps to Increase the Security of Your Data

Improving your security measures is an imperative for any company. Explore these five steps you should take to improve your data protections, and find out how each of these steps acts as a safeguard against compromised data.

1. Assess your current data security policy and processes, and identify any potential gaps in security. Because cyber threats become more advanced each day, data security measures that were strong yesterday may have new weaknesses today.
2. Train all your employees on effective data security processes to ensure alignment across all departments, teams and locations. Whether the cause is human error or malicious motives, your internal users are one of the leading sources of data security failures.
3. Work with your IT team to develop secure networks capable of withstanding advanced cyber attacks, and implement software defenses for increased protection. Having these systems in place helps you prevent breaches, and if they do occur, you can identify and address them faster.
4. Restrict who has access to sensitive data, and monitor who accesses that data to ensure it remains secure. When fewer people have access to crucial, sensitive data, you can better control who is obtaining data and for what purpose.
5. Regularly revisit and update your data security policies based on advancements in threats. When these changes are made, communicate them to your team. Your policies should be living aspects of your data security efforts, not just guidelines that are communicated to your team now and then.

Once you’ve enacted these steps, it’s time to move onto the second part of your data security efforts: your FTP file transfer protocol processes and the service that facilitates data sharing.

Improving Your File Transfer Protocol Process

If you believe your current file sharing process lacks the sophistication needed to keep up with emerging security threats, you should revisit and update your process accordingly.

One mistake many companies make is viewing their file transfer protocol process as concrete. The work doesn’t end once your processes have been created and communicated to your team. View your file sharing process as a work in progress, requiring regular updates reflecting new and emerging data security threats.

The best action you can take to improve your file sharing process is to choose a file transfer solution that enables the necessary security measures needed to keep your data safe. Combining your file transfer protocol with an FTP service you trust, gives you a proactive foundation for preventing security threats data before they even occur.

How to Choose a More Secure FTP Service

At the heart of your file transfer policy is the FTP service you choose to facilitate your data transfers. Is your FTP service enhancing or impeding your data security efforts? The service you select for your company has a long-term impact on your data and your reputation, making it a crucial that you adopt the right FTP service.

When selecting an FTP service, ensure it is compliant with government regulations, has built-in, advanced data security measures to combat hackers and increases automation, effectively minimizing the chance for human error.

No company is entirely safe from data security threats to their FTP file transfer process, but with the right service in place, you’ll greatly minimize the risk of data breaches.  Ensure your data is protected with every file transfer, and keep up vigilant efforts to protect your company against cyber security threats.

Do you have a strong security policy to increase your data protections? Find out how to develop your own IT compliance and security policy by downloading this free template.