Building A Database Security Strategy To Protect Your Business

We do the majority of our work online these days. Whether we’re working on websites or saving things in the cloud, we need the Internet to do work. However, businesses and big companies are constantly worried about protecting their databases. Since so much work happens on Internet-enabled devices, employees and their devices are vulnerable to cybercriminals and viruses. Making database security a priority will save you a ton of headaches over time.

When you’re thinking about database security best practices, there’s no single solution that will do all of it for you. As a business owner, you have to work with your employees and institute technology that everyone is aware of in order to keep the database secure. Emphasizing the importance of database security across company leadership and for employees will help everyone get on board and understand how to keep everything safe. In today’s blog, we’ll talk about the best ways to institute extra protections and what technology to use to keep things safe and put your mind at ease.

What is Database Security?

Database security is a huge necessity for a variety of companies. If you have an e-commerce arm of your company, you absolutely need to have database security to keep your customer information safe. Ensuring the safety of their addresses and payment information should be the first priority. Cybercriminals are likely to attack websites that they perceive to have a lot of financial information and cause a data breach.

Companies that work on surveys, polling, or any sort of information gathering should also be mindful of database security issues. If your company does polling on political candidates, that data absolutely must remain private if the candidate hasn’t announced their intention to run yet, or if they’re getting information about a certain campaign promise they’re planning to make. Companies that work on data collection and interpreting larger trends in consumer behavior also need to be careful about keeping that information safe. Proprietary research needs to have employees and technology that are invested in database security controls.

Journalists and big news companies also need to have strong database security protocols. There is so much sensitive information, especially for investigative reporters, that needs to be protected in the database. Database security isn’t only about keeping customer information safe: employees need to have their information kept safe, too. Outside of companies that handle sensitive information, Human Resources keeps a ton of private information about employees that they need to keep safe from malicious web attacks. Every business should have an interest in database security so they can avoid major breaches that would cause problems for everyone.

Database Security Issues and Solutions

Like we discussed above, a strong database security strategy requires a two-pronged approach: investment from employees and technology that keeps your data safe.

Teaching employees

Whenever you institute more security measures, everyone who works at the company should be aware of how they work and why they need to use them. Setting database security standards across the company will make everything work more smoothly.

You can easily teach employees how to encrypt sensitive files, especially when they’re emailing them to each other across the company. This can be as simple as making sure the documents are password-protected. As long as there is a standard for document security, it will help with database security overall.

It is also a good idea to set up two-factor authentication for all employee accounts. Though this can be a headache, employees need to be able to access all of their accounts when they’re traveling for work or working on the go. This means they might be on public Wi-Fi networks (or networks that are less secure), so they need to have that extra measure of security against hackers. You can also set up a password manager that will help employees keep track of passwords and create stronger passwords for them.

Setting up technology

There are a ton of measures to keep your database security strong. When you keep applications up to date, you’ll have better database security. When you’re setting up your web hosting service, you should definitely go for a paid service that has a track record (and a guarantee) of keeping its customers safe. Although there are free web hosting services, you’ll have much more peace of mind with a paid one.

Setting up a different database server for private information is also a good idea. Your business’s website can be hosted on one server, and all of the private information can be housed on another. This is especially a good idea for e-commerce because shopping websites are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and database security compromise.

Regular database security auditing will help you understand how vulnerable your database is and how to protect it. Integrating this practice into regular business operations will help you catch possible holes and close them quickly. Sometimes, the solution can be as simple as updating a few applications and making sure everything is on the same page, software-wise.

One major security measure you can take is getting a proxy for database security.

Using a Proxy for Database Security

Proxies are a great option as one of your database security controls. A proxy IP address is an IP address that hides the IP address tied to your Internet-enabled device. It acts as a barrier between the device and whatever website or application you’re using. When you’re using them for database security, they evaluate requests before they get through to the server. It’s an extra layer of security that will not slow down business operations at all.

There are different types of proxies to take into consideration for your business’s database security. If you want to make sure all of your employees have proxy IP addresses, you can look into dedicated and semi-dedicated proxy options. This is one proxy IP address for one employee (dedicated) or one proxy IP address shared between a few vetted users (semi-dedicated). Having proxies for your employees means that if they’re accessing the company information remotely on a different Wi-Fi network, they’ll have an extra measure of security when they’re logging into their accounts. Rotating proxies are another option—these rotate out proxy IP addresses as often as you need. However, they’re more expensive. They are a great idea if you want to keep extra-extra secure.

If you’re looking for a database security solution, getting a proxy is a fast and easy way to improve security even more. Setting up a proxy for database security is really simple, but you want to make sure you have the right protocol for the proxy. An HTTP(S) proxy is the one you want because it’s more secure and is able to talk to the majority of the websites on the Internet. An HTTP proxy is similar, but not as secure. A SOCKS proxy works well for mobile devices but is limited in terms of what it can do on the Internet because its protocols are newer.

The proxy is a gatekeeper and can filter out unauthorized requests. It’s a great measure to make sure that there’s an extra layer of defense against a database security breach. Since employees do so much work online, and so much customer-facing business happens online, you have to pay extra attention to database security. It will make your business better overall, especially if you emphasize the importance to employees. They’ll be able to communicate to everyone else why the company is so good at protecting sensitive information, which will create trust within the company and outside of it.

Getting a proxy for your business is important, so we highly suggest finding a paid proxy service that will guarantee security. There are a lot of free and public proxies online, but these essentially run on the trust of everyone involved. There’s no way to guarantee that there won’t be hacks, and this could be very bad for database security.

The Best Database Proxy Security Options

If you’re looking for a business that takes security as seriously as you do, Rayobyte is here to help. We have extra-secure proxy options for database security because we have end-to-end control of our hardware. We also have proxy server locations all over the world and have 24/7 customer service for your convenience. We realize that database security threats can come up at any time, so we strive to have availability for all of our customers.

Rayobyte takes customer satisfaction very seriously, so that’s why we offer so many customizable plans, especially for our Enterprise customers (where you can get dedicated proxy IPs for as low as 65 cents per IP address). Understanding that different businesses have different security needs is very important, and that’s why we have so many proxy options available. Database security is necessary for businesses of all kinds, and we know they all have different needs.

Final Thoughts

When you take database security seriously, you avoid a lot of bigger problems in the future. The problem is that data and sensitive information are major commodities to cybercriminals, so companies have to be on alert for those issues. Creating a company culture that emphasizes security will be incredibly helpful down the line. In addition, making the guarantee to your customers that you have strong database security will build up trust over time. Whatever industry you’re in, you can cultivate a reputation as a trustworthy, secure company that takes these issues seriously.

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