USB Flash Memory Data Protection

24. April 2010 by admin.

The fear of every corporate executive is when sensitive, private company information is compromised. You hear about these stories every couple of weeks.

It’s one thing to have your company’s information compromised from the outside, or to have an insider help to hijack your sensitive information. It’s an entirely different “thing” to have your information lost due to stupidity.

How easy is it to lose your sensitive data? It’s as easy as misplacing it!

Today with the use of portable USB Flash Memory your company’s sensitive data is probably spread out on 1000s of these devices being carried around by 100s of your company’s employees.

You get the picture, everyone has about 2 or 3 different USB flash memory devices in their possession and they often mix work, school, and their own personal information on EACH device.

Now that we know you have the picture in your mind (or to say it another way you KNOW you have a data problem) what are you going to do about it?

Here are 8 simple rules you need to implement concerning these devices this Monday morning.

1. Ask your USB Flash Memory supplier to imprint your logo on every device.
2. Have your supplier “serialize” every unit and set up a process internally to record which employee is responsible for which device.
3. Have your supplier password protect each device. Don’t just password protect a portion of the drive by partitioning it, protect the entire drive. If you don’t do this your employees will use the unprotected portion - every time.
4. For “super secret” information have your supplier implement a data encryption service on the drive.
5. Outlaw with immediate disciplinary action all non-company memory devices.
6. Create a data destruction action plan just like you have for your sensitive paper documents that you are currently shredding through an outside vendor.
7.  Put your data plan in writing, train your employees on the plan, and have them literally sign off on the plan.
8. ENFORCE YOUR DATA PLAN!

If you are looking for a company for the custom logo imprint, serialization, password protection, and encryption my advice is to look at JDP Digital, Inc. They have been  doing this type of work since 2001 for the USB Flash Memory community.

David Peterson - President: Atlanta Sales and Consulting.

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