Ways To Secure Your Digital Content

The number of internet users is increasing every year, and so does the time spent online. According to Statista, in 2020, the number of active Internet users reached 66.6666 billion, 59% of the global population who spend 15 minutes every day on social media.

Internet businesses, communications, and entertainment overlap so strongly that no private user or company can give it up easily. This convenience leads to one big internet concern - data online data security. For example, the U.S. In 2020 alone, there were 1001 reported cases of data breaches, and 155.8 million individuals suffered from disclosing their sensitive information expos online.

However, companies can take effective measures to secure their digital data and content. This article will explain how to protect your content online and avoid cyber threats.

Why Do You Need to Secure Your Data?

Information security is an essential element for the achievement and survival of any business. Companies must ensure that no sensitive customer data, bank account information, or proprietary info becomes exposed to third parties or cyber criminals. For this, businesses need to realize the negative consequences they may face in case of weak data protection. Let's take a look at the main points.

• Well-protected data means reputation.

Many businesses keep their customers' private information, such as names, dates of birth, addresses, credit card details, and more. Leakage of such data can cause instant damage to their reputation, and its restoration will take several years at its best. Therefore, businesses must protect customer data well and promote a positive brand image.

• Poor data protection results in financial loss

Companies that do not run their businesses resort to digital accounting and banking services. As a result, all banking operations and bank account data can be vulnerable to hacker attacks. Moreover, data breaches can weaken investor confidence while consumers can start looking for alternatives and buy from competitors, thus reducing the revenue of businesses.

• Security breaches lead to a decrease in productivity.

Data loss is crucial for any business. Once that happens, they must pause the regular business workflow and start dealing with the emergency. Above all, serious hacker attacks often result in system failures and defects, making it worse. Therefore, companies that refer to banking online banking or have their general ledger in the cloud should pay special attention to their data security systems.

Who Do You Need to Secure Yourself From?

When considering their digital content and data security, companies must realize who could threaten their data. Let's look at three organizations interested in your business data.

• Cybercriminals come after business data to sell it to obtain profit. Also, they can take devices and different hardware hostage by installing ransomware on them. They will demand to pay a fee to unblock the business, although more problems may occur later.
• Advertisers are companies that collect customer data to target and sell their products. It’s no secret that Google and Facebook collect users ’data for improved advertising based on their preferences and needs.
• Governments often find their residents to prevent crime in their countries. However, some companies want to keep their data confidential because it affects their position in the market, or they may rely on some unique developments that they do not want to disclose in any way.
• Content pirates are organizations or individual Internet users who illegally distribute copyrighted content on their platforms to make money. Content pirating is one of the most widespread types of data theft. Therefore, companies that create unique content should be aware of how to protect it well.
  
  

Ways of Protecting Your Digital Content

Here is a list of advanced technologies and techniques to help companies protect their digital content and prevent theft.

•    Encryption

Today, mobile, web, and desktop applications represent open systems. They can easily integrate with third-party services like Facebook, Google, and others and exchange data. As a result, some private data may be exposed and require strong security. Software developers use one of the most effective ways to secure sensitive information - encryption.

Encryption is the process of encoding data for its secure exchange over the Internet. To do this, software developers use various encryption types, such as symmetry which works with a private key, and asymmetry, which requires two keys to encrypt and decrypt data - a public key and a private key.

Users can use various content-encryption tools to send encrypted content via the Internet. They help keep it secure and unchanged, ensuring businesses exchange genuine data with their customers and partners.

• Digital rights management (DRM)

Digital rights management solutions are another way to protect content from unauthorized viewing. These tools protect videos, audio files, and text from illegal distribution and posting online. For this, content creators need to purchase a specialized program that encrypts and packages their content. Only users with a DRM license can access the encrypted information.

• Tokenization

Tokenization is one more way to save data. Tokenization is the process of encrypting a piece of data, such as a URL and attaching it to a token. The token will serve as a reference to the encrypted data though it has no meaning or regard in case it’s hacked. This way, content providers can create special secure URLs with validation access to a site or build the access temporarily.

• Watermarking

Watermarking is an effective way to prevent Internet customers from distributing video content illegally. For this, content creators can put invisible watermarks on their videos. These watermarks may include IP address, customer ID, or name. If the purchaser posts a copy of the video online, a special program can decode the watermark and identify the purchaser.

• Geofencing

Content creators can define the area where they want to provide access to their data. This way, no visitors from outside will be able to see the content. This technology, called geofencing, is frequently used on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and others.