UK Businesses Prioritise Online Privacy Tools to Protect Sensitive Data

As businesses increasingly operate with remote or hybrid teams, you must enable employees to access internal systems and cloud resources seamlessly and securely. A VPN for business provides an encrypted tunnel for this traffic, safeguarding data as it travels over public internet connections.

Without this critical layer of defence, an unsecured connection exposes your proprietary data to potential interception by threat actors. Since remote work increased in popularity a few years ago, many companies have maintained these arrangements.

Data protection and cyber-threats

While secure access is a must, protecting the data itself is just as important. Cyber-threats, including phishing, are rising in frequency and complexity. To improve your defences, you must encrypt all data in transit, thereby limiting the exposure of your business-critical information, even if a threat actor manages to compromise the initial connection point.

While a VPN can assist with this, you should first classify your sensitive data and implement methods such as AES-256 for data at rest and in transit, using tools like  Transparent Data Encryption (TDE). Additionally, consider encrypting your backups with strong keys and introducing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Regulatory compliance and access controls

Choosing secure network access solutions helps you meet the minimum reasonable-security expectations mandated by regulatory frameworks. Beyond mere compliance, a security breach or data leak can cause irreversible damage to your brand reputation and severely erode customer trust.

Demonstrating a commitment to security by implementing robust access controls reassures your clients and partners. This should include a ‘least privilege’ policy, only granting employees access to the data they need for their day-to-day roles.

Firewalls and anti-virus

All businesses should have firewalls and antivirus software in place, which run in the background and act as a sort of gatekeeper. Firewalls block unauthorised access and threats from the outset, whereas anti-virus software detects things from the inside, quarantining anything that looks suspicious and removing any malware.

They are easy-to-install solutions that protect employee devices from infection and potential data loss, and complement other measures like encryption and MFA.