Managed file transfer is a term that relates to a multitude of file transfer requirements, including data security, efficiency and compliance. This can be very time consuming and ineffective when a person or business tries to keep this running on their own, but simply passing your file transfers to a third party and forgetting about them is not safe either.
Having a basic understanding about your managed file transfers and how they are regulated is important to keeping tabs on your business and ensuring the safety of your information.
Is Your File Transfer Meeting Compliance Regulations?
Regardless of how big or small your business is, there are basic government compliance regulations that have to be met. Depending on the information your business handles, you may need to ensure you are meeting regulations from the Privacy Act of 1974, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), to name just a few.
According to ZDNet, “Nearly 1.4 billion data records were stolen by hackers or lost during 2016 – almost double the numbers which were compromised the previous year and indicating the ever growing threat posed not only by cyberattackers but accidental data breaches by insiders,” almost doubling from 2015 to 2016.
In addition to federal guidelines for compliancy, there are also state privacy laws. Non-compliance of these regulations can result in, at the minimum, large fines, and can even cause you to not be allowed to conduct business anymore.
These standards and regulations are set in place not only to help protect your business, but to protect individuals’ personal information as well. Not meeting these compliance levels can result in expensive and difficult to resolve breaches of information on both your side and the person who’s information was exposed.
Be Sure You Are Covering the Basics
Not only should it take care of the compliance regulations for you, but having an electronic file management software for your secure file transfer needs should, simply put, make running just about every aspect of your business easier and smarter.
When you choose how you are going to regulate your file transfers, be sure you are using something that has strong encryption and hashing as their algorithm for protection. Take some time to set up a blacklist and a whitelist. These are IP addresses that are either blocked completely from accessing your system, or are allowed without question.
Set up credentialing systems throughout your employees so you can limit who has access to sensitive information. Use password rules that are followed consistently and set time limits in place for when they need to be changed or deleted entirely following periods of inactivity.
Best Practices
Find a secure file transfer software that is highly recommended, do your research and make sure it covers all of the best practices regarding security for your particular business needs. What works for a medical business may not be what is necessary for a restaurant.
No matter your business, having security on your computer is not only important, it is the law.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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