In alone, there were 1,473 data breaches that compromised over 164 million records. That’s a massive increase from just 783 breaches in 2014 that contributed to the compromising of 85.6 million records.
Successful digital document management should put a heavy focus on security. Regardless of your organization’s size or the field of operation, it’s up to you to protect sensitive data.
Safeguarding digital documents is possible in a couple of effective, personalized and cost-efficient ways. The selection of the right digital document management platform is the first step. Once you have that essential in place, you can move on to adopting other approaches aimed at boosting data security within the organization and during third-party communication.
Digital Document Management Essentials: Encryption
Most digital document management solutions offer at least some basic encryption capabilities.
If you’re looking for a more thorough guide on making encryption happen, you may want to check out the following Business News Daily guide.
To put it in simple terms, encryption is a type of digital cryptography. A mathematical algorithm is used to scramble messages and content, making the data impossible to decipher. For a document to be accessed in its proper form, it will have to be decrypted.
Usually, a single private key or keyword is applied to documents that are to be encrypted. People who need to access the information will have to key so that they could decrypt documents.
It’s up to you to determine which types of files you’re going to encrypt. You can use your document management platform for the purpose or opt for a specialized encryption tool. Do some research on the topic and consult a data security professional if you want a good recommendation for such a service.
Enforcing Access Controls and Restrictions as a Part of Digital Document Management
It’s not a good idea to give everybody access to the entire corporate archive.
Different departments and teams have their specific documentation needs. Hence, you should create different levels of access and restrictions that aim to limit access to some of the company’s most sensitive data.
Access restriction could happen in a couple of ways.
Users may have to identify themselves before getting access to the archive. In some instances, it’s also possible to identify the location of the user and the device is applied to gain access to the database. Whenever an unauthorized device is employed, the access request will be rejected.
Many document management systems also enable the creation of specific rules and controls for one user or a group of users. Based on your data management policy/strategy (and you need to have such), you can determine what restrictions make the most sense and the best ways to enforce those.
It’s important to do access control carefully. If you go overboard, you’ll make it very difficult for people to reach the information they need to do their job. As a result, you could experience a notable reduction in productivity.
Password Protection
Password protection is one of the simplest methods for data protection but it’s often overlooked.
When you have a strong password creation and protection policy in place, you’ll get excellent outcomes this way. There’ll be no need to employ more complex and expensive digital document management and protection methodologies.
Password creation should be governed by rules about the length of the password, the types of symbols to include and the frequency of password updates. Having passwords changed every few months is an excellent idea if you want to protect the archive from human error and carelessness.
Password protection can be strengthened even further through the utilization of an identity token (like a specific device that’s linked to the password) or the identification of machine identities.
Retention Policies, Audit Trails and Backup Plans
The importance of having digital document management policies in place has already been mentioned. Such strategic blueprints create guidelines and standardized procedures that will guarantee consistent results.
A retention policy is one of the important documents you have to develop in connection to digital data security.
The retention policy determines the periods for which specific types of sensitive documents should be kept. After that, the policy should pinpoint viable ways to discard of such digital files in a safe and effective way. While retention is pretty much dependent on regulation, you can also come up with organization-specific guidelines.
Saving policies and backup policies are similar documents. These pinpoint the frequency of such procedures needing to take place. They also create a schedule and guidelines for different kinds of files, depending on their sensitivity level.
Finally, audit trails need to be discussed.
An audit trail is a comprehensive log created by the digital document management system. It shows when a document was created, the users that have accessed it, and the modifications that have been done over the course of the document’s existence.
When you have this kind of audit trail in place, you can easily pinpoint breaches, violations, and mistakes that could compromise the security of documents.
Working today gives you access to a wide array of digital tools that can be utilized to maximize the safety of your digital documents. Don’t hesitate to acquaint yourself with such solutions and pinpoint the ones that will be most useful within your organizational context.