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Ecommerce Data Storage and System Security
Episode 005: Ecommerce Data Storage and System Security
Episode Summary:
As small owners our livelihoods depend on securing our data and protecting critical systems such as access to the backend of our website, email service provider, etc. In this episode Julie discuss the various options available for storing and backing up data as well as issues surrounding securing critical systems.
Episode Links:
My scanner: http://a.co/d/fYWAVOs
https://www.dropbox.com/
https://www.box.com/
https://gsuite.google.com/
https://www.crashplan.com
https://www.lastpass.com/
https://keepass.info/
https://1password.com/
Authenticator App for iOS: goo.gl/i6JDMp
Authenticator App for Android: goo.gl/LiRfRs
Episode Transcript:
Announcer:
Are you looking to take your online business to the next level? Well, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Business Method, with your host, Julie Feickert.
Julie Feickert:
Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of The Savvy Business Method podcast, where we talk about how to plan, start, and grow your small business online. I'm Julie Feickert, and my goal is to help you build practical business skills so you can provide a better life for your family.
A quick reminder that my YouTube Channel is available, and I have a bunch of short videos up there, so if you’re looking for some quick tips and tricks head on over to YouTube and be sure to subscribe so you're notified of all the new videos because there are so many more coming.
Now, for today's topic we're going to be talking about data storage and protecting systems. Doesn’t this sound exciting? This is the episode where you are going to find out that I am a total nerd. But I hope this is useful to you, because as small business owners we need to be really thoughtful about how we store our data and how we protect our systems because it really is a point of potential liability for us.
Think about this: Have you ever stopped to consider what would happen if tomorrow you woke up and were missing your order data? So you had no idea who had placed an order on your website. What if your inventory tracking sheet disappeared? Would you have time to go through and recount all of your inventory, and go back through all your reporting and recreate all your projections? Or what about that truly nightmare scenario. What would happen if your site was corrupted and there was no way to recover the data and you had to start all over? What would that look like? How many sales would you lose? How much of your sanity would you lose?
As much as being an entrepreneur can be this awesome experience, there are some downsides, right? In a corporation there would be a department that's responsible for data storage and security and there would be people who had gone to school for data security making the decisions. But when you're a small business owner, the decisions fall to you. So I want to talk with you today about the things you need to be concerned about when it comes to data storage and protection. I've been doing this a long time; I've made my share of mistakes, I've seen other people make their share of mistakes and I'd like to save you some pain and suffering. So maybe grab a glass of wine and sit back and let's dive in.
Okay, let's start the discussion by talking about what we should be storing and how. Now, I am going to tell you up front that I am a huge fan of keeping copies of keeping copies of pretty much everything related to your business. They’re very few exceptions. You should keep every invoice, every form you fill out, every screenshot if you register with online systems, that sort of thing. Everything should be kept, well-filed, and easily accessible. That sounds like so much work, doesn't it? Let me give you a few tips here: I would strongly suggest that you invest is a really good scanner, the type that feeds paper, not the type that lift up that you have to lay a paper down. This thing is going to be your best friend. I will link to the one I have in the show notes but I'll tell you up front it is definitely not the cheapest option, I'm sure there are different ones available. I just happened to have had this one for 7 or 8 years and it has just kept on kicking and done a great job for me so I feel like I should definitely link to it but know that it is definitely one of the more costly ones. It feeds fifty pages at a time; it's just super easy to use.
I would suggest that you try to make scanning your paperwork something you do a couple times a week. Once you get in the habit of this, it'll take you a couple of minutes, you'll name all your files, you'll get them into folders, and then when something happens, I guarantee you something will happen on like a Tuesday afternoon at 4:00, where you have to find a piece of paper, and it'll be right there for you. It's so much easier; it takes so much stress of your life to be able to find what you need quickly.
Now, having told you you should keep everything, I do need to disclaim something here: When it comes to other people's personal data, and I'm talking about things like birthdays and social security numbers, specifically the types of data you end up having a hold of when you hire people, that information you should not be keeping long term, and you'll want to check with your local small business attorney so you can determine from like a state level what your liability there is, but in general I try to follow the rule that I don't keep people's personal information for longer than 12 months once they've stopped working for me. That just limits your liability in case your data were to be stolen, okay? So I just wanted to throw out that there is that one exception to not keeping everything, but you know like everything else? You've got to keep it.
Okay, so where are you keeping all of this data? It's a lot, right? Wait until you start doing videos or podcasts, then you're going to have so much data you're not going to know what to do with it. But, you know, we have to balance a few things as entrepreneurs. One of the biggest priorities when it comes to storing our data ends up being accessibility. How quickly can I get the files that I need so that I can get my work done? Can I get to my files form my cell phone or on my laptop or on my desktop so that I can pull up things quickly and get my work done?
Okay, so in terms of storage options, the big ones that I see most small businesses using and I have used myself include DropBox, Box.com, Google for Business. The nice thing about these platforms for storing data is that they're generally accessible form just about everywhere, and so you always have access to your files and you can get your work done from wherever you happen to be.
The thing to understand when you're using a system like this that's based on a cloud structure so your information is sitting on servers in some warehouse somewhere is that some third party systems are not generally backed up. That's not part of the service that's being provided. Also be sure to read the fine print. Generally speaking, third party systems don’t guarantee your data will be safe. Things like security breaches, and corruption of the data where the data's lost, those are all risks you generally just take using a third party service. But, understand I am not knocking on these services. They are amazing for accessibility. I'm just pointing out that you really need to be thoughtful about backing up your data and backing it up regularly.
Now, backing up your data generally means making at least one backup copy that is stored in a different location, personally I do this every day but you can do it a couple of times a week or once a week, It just kind of depends on how much data you're generating. I will tell you that redundant backups are best, this is when you back up from, say, DropBox to a server in your house, and then you back up that server to an off-site backup situation like CrashPlan or something like that, in fact that's the system that we personally use for our companies. Because that way, if something goes wrong, I always have a couple of different copies that I can go back to.
Now there are a couple of good backup solutions out there. If you're talking about trying to back up a copy just on a different computer, but in your home or your office, you can use an external hard drive, just use a separate computer, you can use a Network Area Storage device or a server if you want to get a little bit fancier. All those options start at like $80 dollars, so they're not terribly expensive, and if you're going to be generating a lot of information, or as your business is really generating revenue, I'd encourage you to make that investment so that you have this set up and can be all the time.
Now, if you want to talk about off-site backups, there's a couple of options available. If you're mainly storing files on your computer you certainly could back up to a third party service, like DropBox, or Google Business, and so if one of those two things fails, you should have another copy availble. I did mention CrashPlan; that's who we personally have used for years. I really like CrashPlan, they're affordable, they have an excellent reputation for not losing data, and that's really important to me. In terms of a potential free option, I have in the past, mainly for personal and stuff, not as much for business, but if you have a friend maybe in another city or state who would be willing to do a nightly exchange of data, we used to send all of our personal stuff to our friend's server in their home, every couple of days, and they would send their stuff to us, and at one point that saved some really important pictures, that would have otherwise been lost. So, that's a free option, maybe not the most secure thing ever, but it is something to consider. Okay, so hopefully you're now getting some ideas on how it is you’re going to back up your data regularly and make sure you keep copies of everything.
So let's move on and talk more about system security. Now, number one thing in terms of system security because you're going to be running a lot of systems as a small business owner, right? You have your website, you have your Email Service Provider, you have your Google accounts, you have your main email server that's handling like your business email, I mean there's a lot of things that could be potentially be broken into and damaged caused.
So, the first thing you need to worry about is having different secure passwords for every single system and I know that sounds so elementary but you would not believe how many people are still working on insecure passwords. So let's just do a quick review. Every single system you have, every single time you are asked for new password, you should be creating a unique password that is long, like at least 12 characters, it should include upper and lower case letters, numbers, symbols, you want a nice combination going on.
Now, of course, if this is something that you're new to in creating unique passwords, these long secure unique passwords, you're probably having a panic moment right now, right? Because how are you going to remember all these passwords? I would really encourage you, every small business owner needs to have a subscription to a password manager. Something like LastPass, or 1Password, or Keeper, or KeePass, there's a ton of these out there. They're very secure; you get to basically have a password to log in and you'll want to make a secure password there but hopefully you can remember one secure password on your own, and these systems keep everything secure and they just make it so much easier to have great passwords for everything single one of your systems. They're also really inexpensive; most of the time they're like two or three dollars a month. So this is well worth your time and your money to get this, get a subscription and get it set up.
I would just put a warning out to you because we own businesses, right? And we need to make sure if something happens to us that our businesses stay functioning so they can continue to support our families, if you have someone who would be the executor of your estate, you probably want to have some information somewhere so that they can get into your password manager so when in the event something happens to you, and I hate to be fatalistic but we all need to be thinking about that, they'd be able to get access to your systems to keep your business running.
Okay, next up let's talk about accessing systems in general. Because even with all of your secure passwords there are still some things you need to be thinking about in terms of how easy your systems are to access. Now, one, you need to make sure all of your devices are also password protected, your laptop, your phone, your tablet. All of these devices should not be easy to break into. Because, I mean, let's face it. We all know someone or maybe we've done it ourselves where we've left, like, our phone in a public restroom, you don't want someone to immediately be able to get access to say, your website, or lock you out, or to get access to your email system and send spam email, something like that.
And there are a number of things you can do to prevent that, you can secure your devices with passwords, some brands are obviously better than other for that, you can use what's called Authenticator, which will come up and ask you for a separate authentication, normally it is sending a text to your cell phone with a number so that you have to have that to log in to your systems.
I would also put out a warning to you that you want to make sure you are only accessing password-protected systems over secure wireless. This is something that I just cannot overstate; actually I know of a situation where a company lost a whole bunch of money out of their bank account because their bookkeeper was accessing their bank account over an unsecure wireless connection. And, the general rule of thumb here is if you did not secure that wireless connection yourself, or you don't know what you’re doing, you need to assume that your wireless connection is not secure. So don't go to Starbucks or any coffee shop, not dissing on Starbucks, but don't go to a coffee shop and access your bank account, okay? That's just not a good plan at all. Also know that if you lose money out of your business bank account, your bank doesn't have to put it back and they won't. So, this is your incentive. Just be careful.
Also if you travel a lot, like I used to do a ton of traveling for work for a while there, I had a subscription to a Virtual Private Network. And that's how I accessed systems like in the evening is my hotel room I would go to my Virtual Private Network, and then I could use the hotel's Wi-Fi, and I was able to access my system securely. So there's a bunch of things that you can do. This is just about changing your mindset, and thinking about what would happen if someone was able to get access to my systems.
Okay, now at some point odds are good your business is going to grow and you're going to be in a position where you need to give access to secure systems to other people. Whether it's hiring a virtual assistant, or maybe your developer who’s working on your website or, maybe you start hiring employees. And so this is going to take some special thought and set up on your part.
So, the number one rule I have is do not give employees, contractors, anyone access to administrative accounts. And by administrative account I mean anything where they can get in, and do significant damage and particularly anything they can get into where they could delete you as a user. So you think about if you give access to an employee and they can delete you out of the account, or delete your user out of the account, they can get control over whatever it is you're working on. And, you know, we all want to be able to trust people but the reality is that sometimes, things go sour, and we need to be protecting ourselves and our businesses. You really want to only give employees and contractors and other people as much access as absolutely necessary to accomplish their tasks.
Now the good news is this has gotten a lot easier over the last few years because of these password systems that are available now. So for example, I use LastPass to not only secure my personal passwords, and then my husband and I share passwords, because, you know, we ultimately have two companies that we're running, and then I am also able to set up other users so if we have an employee or a contractor, I can give access for them in LastPass, and I can give them a password to access LastPass, and if for some reason I need to take their access away, I am doing that through my LastPass account, okay? So I'm able to, let's say they quit, or I have to terminate their employment, I am able to terminate access to one system, and they no longer have access to any of the systems. It's amazing. I cannot even begin to tell you the difference this makes for a small business owner, it used to be if you let somebody go, you had to sit there and go "Oh man, which systems did they have access to and how do I lock them out of all these systems?" Now it's a matter of changing their access to one system. So definitely make sure you've got these kinds of systems set up before you think about hiring anyone.
Okay, well I've given you a lot to chew on today. You know, data protection isn’t really that difficult, it's just about getting your systems set up and being thoughtful about doing the basic maintenance and kind of getting into that new mindset. Yeah as I said, I'm human and I've made my share of mistakes as a business owner, I have seen other people make mistakes, and some of which were fairly disastrous but I just don't want to see bad things happen to you or your business.
Okay, if you have feedback or ideas for future shows you can find me at savvybusinessmethod.com as well as on Facebook and YouTube. Please be sure to hit that little subscribe button in iTunes or Stitcher so you don't miss an episode, and of course, I would greatly appreciate if you could rate and review this podcast in iTunes. It really does help other people find it, and I love reading the reviews. I just get some sweet lovely reviews and I am so thankful for them.
I'll be back in your feed in a few days and until then, hey, go secure your data! Bye for now!
Announcer:
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Savvy Business Method with Julie Feickert. If you enjoyed today's episode please leave a review and subscribe, and for more great content and to stay up to date, visit savvybusinessmethod.com, and Savvy Business Method on Facebook. We'll catch you next time.
Episode 005: Ecommerce Data Storage and System Security
View all episodes
By Julie FeickertEpisode 005: Ecommerce Data Storage and System Security
Episode Summary:
As small owners our livelihoods depend on securing our data and protecting critical systems such as access to the backend of our website, email service provider, etc. In this episode Julie discuss the various options available for storing and backing up data as well as issues surrounding securing critical systems.
Episode Links:
My scanner: http://a.co/d/fYWAVOs
https://www.dropbox.com/
https://www.box.com/
https://gsuite.google.com/
https://www.crashplan.com
https://www.lastpass.com/
https://keepass.info/
https://1password.com/
Authenticator App for iOS: goo.gl/i6JDMp
Authenticator App for Android: goo.gl/LiRfRs
Episode Transcript:
Announcer:
Are you looking to take your online business to the next level? Well, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Business Method, with your host, Julie Feickert.
Julie Feickert:
Hello and welcome to Episode 5 of The Savvy Business Method podcast, where we talk about how to plan, start, and grow your small business online. I'm Julie Feickert, and my goal is to help you build practical business skills so you can provide a better life for your family.
A quick reminder that my YouTube Channel is available, and I have a bunch of short videos up there, so if you’re looking for some quick tips and tricks head on over to YouTube and be sure to subscribe so you're notified of all the new videos because there are so many more coming.
Now, for today's topic we're going to be talking about data storage and protecting systems. Doesn’t this sound exciting? This is the episode where you are going to find out that I am a total nerd. But I hope this is useful to you, because as small business owners we need to be really thoughtful about how we store our data and how we protect our systems because it really is a point of potential liability for us.
Think about this: Have you ever stopped to consider what would happen if tomorrow you woke up and were missing your order data? So you had no idea who had placed an order on your website. What if your inventory tracking sheet disappeared? Would you have time to go through and recount all of your inventory, and go back through all your reporting and recreate all your projections? Or what about that truly nightmare scenario. What would happen if your site was corrupted and there was no way to recover the data and you had to start all over? What would that look like? How many sales would you lose? How much of your sanity would you lose?
As much as being an entrepreneur can be this awesome experience, there are some downsides, right? In a corporation there would be a department that's responsible for data storage and security and there would be people who had gone to school for data security making the decisions. But when you're a small business owner, the decisions fall to you. So I want to talk with you today about the things you need to be concerned about when it comes to data storage and protection. I've been doing this a long time; I've made my share of mistakes, I've seen other people make their share of mistakes and I'd like to save you some pain and suffering. So maybe grab a glass of wine and sit back and let's dive in.
Okay, let's start the discussion by talking about what we should be storing and how. Now, I am going to tell you up front that I am a huge fan of keeping copies of keeping copies of pretty much everything related to your business. They’re very few exceptions. You should keep every invoice, every form you fill out, every screenshot if you register with online systems, that sort of thing. Everything should be kept, well-filed, and easily accessible. That sounds like so much work, doesn't it? Let me give you a few tips here: I would strongly suggest that you invest is a really good scanner, the type that feeds paper, not the type that lift up that you have to lay a paper down. This thing is going to be your best friend. I will link to the one I have in the show notes but I'll tell you up front it is definitely not the cheapest option, I'm sure there are different ones available. I just happened to have had this one for 7 or 8 years and it has just kept on kicking and done a great job for me so I feel like I should definitely link to it but know that it is definitely one of the more costly ones. It feeds fifty pages at a time; it's just super easy to use.
I would suggest that you try to make scanning your paperwork something you do a couple times a week. Once you get in the habit of this, it'll take you a couple of minutes, you'll name all your files, you'll get them into folders, and then when something happens, I guarantee you something will happen on like a Tuesday afternoon at 4:00, where you have to find a piece of paper, and it'll be right there for you. It's so much easier; it takes so much stress of your life to be able to find what you need quickly.
Now, having told you you should keep everything, I do need to disclaim something here: When it comes to other people's personal data, and I'm talking about things like birthdays and social security numbers, specifically the types of data you end up having a hold of when you hire people, that information you should not be keeping long term, and you'll want to check with your local small business attorney so you can determine from like a state level what your liability there is, but in general I try to follow the rule that I don't keep people's personal information for longer than 12 months once they've stopped working for me. That just limits your liability in case your data were to be stolen, okay? So I just wanted to throw out that there is that one exception to not keeping everything, but you know like everything else? You've got to keep it.
Okay, so where are you keeping all of this data? It's a lot, right? Wait until you start doing videos or podcasts, then you're going to have so much data you're not going to know what to do with it. But, you know, we have to balance a few things as entrepreneurs. One of the biggest priorities when it comes to storing our data ends up being accessibility. How quickly can I get the files that I need so that I can get my work done? Can I get to my files form my cell phone or on my laptop or on my desktop so that I can pull up things quickly and get my work done?
Okay, so in terms of storage options, the big ones that I see most small businesses using and I have used myself include DropBox, Box.com, Google for Business. The nice thing about these platforms for storing data is that they're generally accessible form just about everywhere, and so you always have access to your files and you can get your work done from wherever you happen to be.
The thing to understand when you're using a system like this that's based on a cloud structure so your information is sitting on servers in some warehouse somewhere is that some third party systems are not generally backed up. That's not part of the service that's being provided. Also be sure to read the fine print. Generally speaking, third party systems don’t guarantee your data will be safe. Things like security breaches, and corruption of the data where the data's lost, those are all risks you generally just take using a third party service. But, understand I am not knocking on these services. They are amazing for accessibility. I'm just pointing out that you really need to be thoughtful about backing up your data and backing it up regularly.
Now, backing up your data generally means making at least one backup copy that is stored in a different location, personally I do this every day but you can do it a couple of times a week or once a week, It just kind of depends on how much data you're generating. I will tell you that redundant backups are best, this is when you back up from, say, DropBox to a server in your house, and then you back up that server to an off-site backup situation like CrashPlan or something like that, in fact that's the system that we personally use for our companies. Because that way, if something goes wrong, I always have a couple of different copies that I can go back to.
Now there are a couple of good backup solutions out there. If you're talking about trying to back up a copy just on a different computer, but in your home or your office, you can use an external hard drive, just use a separate computer, you can use a Network Area Storage device or a server if you want to get a little bit fancier. All those options start at like $80 dollars, so they're not terribly expensive, and if you're going to be generating a lot of information, or as your business is really generating revenue, I'd encourage you to make that investment so that you have this set up and can be all the time.
Now, if you want to talk about off-site backups, there's a couple of options available. If you're mainly storing files on your computer you certainly could back up to a third party service, like DropBox, or Google Business, and so if one of those two things fails, you should have another copy availble. I did mention CrashPlan; that's who we personally have used for years. I really like CrashPlan, they're affordable, they have an excellent reputation for not losing data, and that's really important to me. In terms of a potential free option, I have in the past, mainly for personal and stuff, not as much for business, but if you have a friend maybe in another city or state who would be willing to do a nightly exchange of data, we used to send all of our personal stuff to our friend's server in their home, every couple of days, and they would send their stuff to us, and at one point that saved some really important pictures, that would have otherwise been lost. So, that's a free option, maybe not the most secure thing ever, but it is something to consider. Okay, so hopefully you're now getting some ideas on how it is you’re going to back up your data regularly and make sure you keep copies of everything.
So let's move on and talk more about system security. Now, number one thing in terms of system security because you're going to be running a lot of systems as a small business owner, right? You have your website, you have your Email Service Provider, you have your Google accounts, you have your main email server that's handling like your business email, I mean there's a lot of things that could be potentially be broken into and damaged caused.
So, the first thing you need to worry about is having different secure passwords for every single system and I know that sounds so elementary but you would not believe how many people are still working on insecure passwords. So let's just do a quick review. Every single system you have, every single time you are asked for new password, you should be creating a unique password that is long, like at least 12 characters, it should include upper and lower case letters, numbers, symbols, you want a nice combination going on.
Now, of course, if this is something that you're new to in creating unique passwords, these long secure unique passwords, you're probably having a panic moment right now, right? Because how are you going to remember all these passwords? I would really encourage you, every small business owner needs to have a subscription to a password manager. Something like LastPass, or 1Password, or Keeper, or KeePass, there's a ton of these out there. They're very secure; you get to basically have a password to log in and you'll want to make a secure password there but hopefully you can remember one secure password on your own, and these systems keep everything secure and they just make it so much easier to have great passwords for everything single one of your systems. They're also really inexpensive; most of the time they're like two or three dollars a month. So this is well worth your time and your money to get this, get a subscription and get it set up.
I would just put a warning out to you because we own businesses, right? And we need to make sure if something happens to us that our businesses stay functioning so they can continue to support our families, if you have someone who would be the executor of your estate, you probably want to have some information somewhere so that they can get into your password manager so when in the event something happens to you, and I hate to be fatalistic but we all need to be thinking about that, they'd be able to get access to your systems to keep your business running.
Okay, next up let's talk about accessing systems in general. Because even with all of your secure passwords there are still some things you need to be thinking about in terms of how easy your systems are to access. Now, one, you need to make sure all of your devices are also password protected, your laptop, your phone, your tablet. All of these devices should not be easy to break into. Because, I mean, let's face it. We all know someone or maybe we've done it ourselves where we've left, like, our phone in a public restroom, you don't want someone to immediately be able to get access to say, your website, or lock you out, or to get access to your email system and send spam email, something like that.
And there are a number of things you can do to prevent that, you can secure your devices with passwords, some brands are obviously better than other for that, you can use what's called Authenticator, which will come up and ask you for a separate authentication, normally it is sending a text to your cell phone with a number so that you have to have that to log in to your systems.
I would also put out a warning to you that you want to make sure you are only accessing password-protected systems over secure wireless. This is something that I just cannot overstate; actually I know of a situation where a company lost a whole bunch of money out of their bank account because their bookkeeper was accessing their bank account over an unsecure wireless connection. And, the general rule of thumb here is if you did not secure that wireless connection yourself, or you don't know what you’re doing, you need to assume that your wireless connection is not secure. So don't go to Starbucks or any coffee shop, not dissing on Starbucks, but don't go to a coffee shop and access your bank account, okay? That's just not a good plan at all. Also know that if you lose money out of your business bank account, your bank doesn't have to put it back and they won't. So, this is your incentive. Just be careful.
Also if you travel a lot, like I used to do a ton of traveling for work for a while there, I had a subscription to a Virtual Private Network. And that's how I accessed systems like in the evening is my hotel room I would go to my Virtual Private Network, and then I could use the hotel's Wi-Fi, and I was able to access my system securely. So there's a bunch of things that you can do. This is just about changing your mindset, and thinking about what would happen if someone was able to get access to my systems.
Okay, now at some point odds are good your business is going to grow and you're going to be in a position where you need to give access to secure systems to other people. Whether it's hiring a virtual assistant, or maybe your developer who’s working on your website or, maybe you start hiring employees. And so this is going to take some special thought and set up on your part.
So, the number one rule I have is do not give employees, contractors, anyone access to administrative accounts. And by administrative account I mean anything where they can get in, and do significant damage and particularly anything they can get into where they could delete you as a user. So you think about if you give access to an employee and they can delete you out of the account, or delete your user out of the account, they can get control over whatever it is you're working on. And, you know, we all want to be able to trust people but the reality is that sometimes, things go sour, and we need to be protecting ourselves and our businesses. You really want to only give employees and contractors and other people as much access as absolutely necessary to accomplish their tasks.
Now the good news is this has gotten a lot easier over the last few years because of these password systems that are available now. So for example, I use LastPass to not only secure my personal passwords, and then my husband and I share passwords, because, you know, we ultimately have two companies that we're running, and then I am also able to set up other users so if we have an employee or a contractor, I can give access for them in LastPass, and I can give them a password to access LastPass, and if for some reason I need to take their access away, I am doing that through my LastPass account, okay? So I'm able to, let's say they quit, or I have to terminate their employment, I am able to terminate access to one system, and they no longer have access to any of the systems. It's amazing. I cannot even begin to tell you the difference this makes for a small business owner, it used to be if you let somebody go, you had to sit there and go "Oh man, which systems did they have access to and how do I lock them out of all these systems?" Now it's a matter of changing their access to one system. So definitely make sure you've got these kinds of systems set up before you think about hiring anyone.
Okay, well I've given you a lot to chew on today. You know, data protection isn’t really that difficult, it's just about getting your systems set up and being thoughtful about doing the basic maintenance and kind of getting into that new mindset. Yeah as I said, I'm human and I've made my share of mistakes as a business owner, I have seen other people make mistakes, and some of which were fairly disastrous but I just don't want to see bad things happen to you or your business.
Okay, if you have feedback or ideas for future shows you can find me at savvybusinessmethod.com as well as on Facebook and YouTube. Please be sure to hit that little subscribe button in iTunes or Stitcher so you don't miss an episode, and of course, I would greatly appreciate if you could rate and review this podcast in iTunes. It really does help other people find it, and I love reading the reviews. I just get some sweet lovely reviews and I am so thankful for them.
I'll be back in your feed in a few days and until then, hey, go secure your data! Bye for now!
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Episode 005: Ecommerce Data Storage and System Security