4 Digital Hygiene Practices Your Business Needs
Updated · Feb 07, 2025
Just as good personal hygiene keeps you healthy, digital hygiene shields your business data from online threats. And no, there’s no need to scrub your laptop under running water. Instead, using the right cyber safety tools and practices can protect you from cyberattacks, malware, and data theft. So, you can stick to those.
First, let’s talk about the most common digital hygiene problems your business can encounter. Then, we’ll unpack four primary practices you and your IT teams should definitely implement to keep your business’ hygiene spotless.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Common Digital Hygiene Problems
When it comes to businesses, several factors can impact digital hygiene, or the lack of it. This includes all the computers, phones, routers, software, and online apps your teams use throughout their workday and how well these are organized and kept up to date. If any mentioned element doesn’t undergo regular maintenance, your business is inclined to face issues such as:
- Security breaches. Hackers may use malware, spam, and viruses to break into your system and use your data in malicious ways. They can also break in by using phishing emails and similar practices.
- Data loss. Not all businesses back up their data regularly, meaning that it can be lost at any time. Be it hacking or corruption, everything on hard drives and cloud storage is prone to loss.
- Data misplacement. In case your business has a lot of data storage that isn’t stored by structure or order, it’s all too easy for crucial information to get lost in the shuffle.
- Outdated software. Both professional and security software should be regularly updated. If the applications are old, they might not be protected from new attacks and malware. The same goes for digital security software – it should be up-to-date, or else it can’t protect your business.
Now that you know the main digital hygiene concerns, let’s learn the practices you and your IT teams need to adapt for your enterprise.
1. Maintaining Strong Passwords with Password Managers
Passwords are the most important part of personal identification in businesses. They are the first step to logging into any account and the first thing hackers attempt to steal.
Using a password manager for IT teams can be helpful since your business likely has multiple accounts that you need to keep safe. These services create strong and complex passwords, save them in a protected place, and help you input them whenever needed. So, your employees don’t have to remember the login information or create the passwords themselves.
In addition to using password management software, you should also enable two- or multi-factor authentication for all business accounts, including employee emails and professional social media.
2. Implementing Employee Data Removal Tools
Hackers and cybercriminals commonly use personal information of personnel to attack a business. Even things your employees casually share online can be used against them and your enterprise.
Unfortunately, even awareness training doesn’t always help, as data breaches continue to happen every day, leaving businesses torn down and bankrupt. That is exactly why cleaning employee data off the web should be a part of your digital hygiene strategy.
But how can a company erase all information at once when clearing a single employee’s data manually takes up to 50 hours? Plus, maintaining it requires monthly follow-ups. Thankfully, data removal services can handle this for you.
Remember to remove your employees’ professional and personal data. Even home addresses and credit card information can be easily found online and used against the company, such as in targeted social engineering attacks. Also, ensure regular maintenance and check-ups are requested.
3. Backing Up Your Files Regularly
Did you know that your data can be held for ransom? Unfortunately, a lot of businesses lose their sensitive information to criminals and are expected to pay for it. Similarly, you can lose your data to file or hardware corruption.
Backing up your data regularly, be it on hardware or cloud storage, should be a habit at your business. This process will ensure that important files are always by your side. Additionally, you can encrypt your data or storage for extra safety.
4. Keeping Your Applications Up-to-Date
Updating software on all applications used is a no-brainer for every business. First, this process allows you to receive important patches that protect you from software vulnerabilities, creating a secure shield against potential cyberattacks.
Secondly, outdated software can become a weak link in your network, which hackers can attack and exploit to gain access to other connected devices and resources, compromising an entire system or organization.
Thirdly, patches fix annoying bugs and lower the chance of data breaches. Your applications become more reliable and easier to use.
Follow These Digital Hygiene Practices
Digital hygiene is just as important as personal hygiene. Especially if you don’t want your business to experience any security risks. With tools like a password manager, removing employee information from public sites, backing up files regularly, and keeping software updated, you can build a strong line of defense that protects against data loss, cyberattacks, and other online threats.
Aruna Madrekar is an editor at Coolest Gadgets, focusing on SEO and content creation. She writes and edits engaging articles, making complex information easy to understand with charts and graphs. Aruna's work on smartphone reviews and app statistics helps Coolest Gadgets reach a wide audience with valuable insights.
