How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Personal data is about living people and could be their name, address, medical details or banking details. How do we safeguard our personal and financial data? The manner of protection often depends on what kind of data you are safeguarding and how important or sensitivity it is to us. The following tips will help us to safeguard our personal and financial data.

Firstly, we may use and maintain anti-virus software, a firewall, and anti-spy ware software to protect ourselves against viruses and Trojan horses. They may steal or modify the data on your own computer and leave our vulnerable by using anti-virus software and a firewall. We should make sure our virus definitions up to date. Spy ware or ad ware hidden in software programs may also give attackers access to your data, so use a legitimate anti-spy ware program to scan your computer and remove any of these files.

Secondly, we should always create password in order to protect our access. By using a strong password or pass-phrase, it helps to protect access to our personal and financial data. For example, we need to choose PIN wisely. While we want to choose something you'll remember, you don't want it to be something that a clever thief could figure out just by learning your birth date or your child's name. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols will offer you more security. The stronger the password you create, the lower the risk of password being known.

Thirdly, we should encrypt stored personal and financial data whenever possible. This can help prevent unintended disclosure even if our system has been compromised. Data can be protected by encrypting the entire storage drive (whole disk encryption) or as selectively as you need, such as by folder or even individual files. If the encryption key or password is lost, access to the data may be lost as well. There are many products or options available, so be sure to carefully select one that is right for our personal requirement.

Fourth, we need to identify where the data is stored from time to time. We must have specific places within our network or computer where we store personal and financial data. Those network shares, hard drives, servers, or system folders can then have specific protection methods used to keep them more secure. If we need to store personal and financial data temporarily on a memory stick, laptop, or other device, remove that data from the device when we have finished. We should ensure that data has been completely erased and not just deleted.

Fifth, we should always limit transportation and transmission of data if you do not need to do so. For example, do not allow our personal and financial data to be sent via email or removed on a USB stick unless there is a clear need. When we do transport or transmit it, ensure that it has an appropriate level of security.

Sixth, it is a need to check privacy policies before providing personal or financial information. We need to check the web site's privacy policy and make sure we understand how our information will be stored and used. For example, attackers may attempt to gather information by sending emails requesting that you confirm purchase or account information. In this case, we should always alert the security of our personal and financial data.

Seventh, there is a need to limit physical access. Whenever possible, we store personal or financial data on devices that are physically secured. Allowing only authorized individual accesses to those devices, and monitor access to those devices whenever possible.