{"id":28023,"date":"2019-08-22T08:22:16","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T12:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/emagazine\/\/28023\/"},"modified":"2021-07-19T04:18:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T08:18:48","slug":"digital-clutter-data-management","status":"publish","type":"emagazine","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/28023\/","title":{"rendered":"Why clearing your digital clutter can boost your office&#8217;s data security defenses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you work in a digital environment, you know what it\u2019s like. Creating and storing sensitive documents every day, then sharing them with colleagues, suppliers, suppliers\u2019 employees\u2026 The list goes on. But did you know that without adequate encryption, access rights and secure storage, these documents can threaten your company\u2019s data security? We call it digital clutter \u2013 disorganized data that, left unchecked, can help hackers access your systems and expose your business\u2019s confidential customer and personal data.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take a look at why digital clutter can expose your business and what you can do about it.<\/p>\n<h2>Why a fridge can talk about the threat of digital clutter<\/h2>\n<p>I\u2019ll explain more after this video of comedian Josh Pieters pulling a (related) office prank.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"640\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3wYXx35Av_k?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Imagine a fridge. Filled with glorious, unlabeled and \u2013 in some cases \u2013 rotting food. Now, without those labels and someone to regulate what goes in or out \u2013 or a system to get rid of the dangerously out-of-date goods \u2013 people are free to take whatever they please. While that might be great (or not) for a hungry chancer, it\u2019s not good for the owner of the food. Or, in this case, the owner of the files \u2013 your business.<\/p>\n<p>Payroll information, photos of your cat, blueprints for a takeover or acquisition \u2013 whatever is on your server or cloud, it\u2019s easy for hackers or angry ex-employees to use it against you if not labeled, organized or encrypted properly.<\/p>\n<h2>How digital clutter can affect data security<\/h2>\n<p>Imagine: a group email chain at work. You bought a few people pizza last week. You send your bank details out for these lucky colleagues to pay you back. Has everyone deleted the email with your banking information? Probably not. This could leave your company, and your bank account, open to a cyberattack.<\/p>\n<p>Or your recent news of a pay rise. Congratulations! Have you stored the details somewhere safe on the server or the cloud? Is it password protected? If not, there\u2019s a high chance that one of your team members could find it. Swap the word \u2018team member\u2019 for \u2018organized hacker\u2019 and there\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n<p>Organized hackers, malicious insiders, disgruntled ex-employees: digital clutter can help any of them to compromise your data security. There\u2019s also a chance that exposing your business\u2019s customer or personal data could lead to prosecution under local data regulations, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/gdpr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">GDPR<\/a>. The good news? You can skip all that stress with a few simple steps.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/92\/2019\/08\/22063728\/digital-clutter-inline-scaled.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-28027 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/media.kasperskydaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/92\/2019\/08\/22063728\/digital-clutter-inline-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Sort out your digital clutter today<\/h2>\n<p>For the IT managers or IT security managers amongst you, we recommend telling your employees about the risks of digital clutter. Why? Because education is the most powerful form of defense. According to Kaspersky\u2019s Dmitry Aleshin, training your colleagues on how to prevent digital clutter will help you find your digital feng shui.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Every employee \u2013 from accounts to IT \u2013 should be trained on how to share files safely, encrypt important documents and avoid phishing emails. If not, your business is at risk.<\/p>\n<cite><p><strong>Dmitry Aleshin<\/strong><\/p><p>VP of Product Marketing, Kaspersky<\/p><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<p>In a nutshell: for every digital document and folder, you need to consider who has access, how long for and whether it needs to be encrypted. Customer data and financial plans, for example, need encrypting to the highest level. Bonus tip: just because you\u2019ve lost a device or it\u2019s been stolen, it still needs encrypting, which a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/small-to-medium-business-security\/endpoint-select\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">endpoint security products<\/a> offer.<\/p>\n<p>Find out more about the issue and how to fix it in Kaspersky\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/digital-clutter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">report on digital clutter<\/a>. You can find a bucketload of stats to impress your colleagues with and help them secure their personal data. Lunchtimes will never be the same again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disorganized data can pose a serious cybersecurity risk. Here\u2019s why a simple spring-clean could give your business\u2019s data security an extra layer of defense. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2520,"featured_media":28514,"template":"","coauthors":[3424],"class_list":{"0":"post-28023","1":"emagazine","2":"type-emagazine","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"emagazine-category-data-and-privacy","7":"emagazine-category-safer-business","8":"emagazine-category-small-business","9":"emagazine-tag-data","10":"emagazine-tag-data-security","11":"emagazine-tag-digital-clutter"},"hreflang":[{"hreflang":"x-default","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/28023\/"},{"hreflang":"en-us","url":"https:\/\/usa.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/22036\/"},{"hreflang":"en-gb","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.uk\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/20421\/"},{"hreflang":"es-mx","url":"https:\/\/latam.kaspersky.com\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/18800\/"},{"hreflang":"pt-br","url":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com.br\/blog\/secure-futures-magazine\/digital-clutter-data-management\/14858\/"}],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/emagazine\/28023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/emagazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/emagazine"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}