Better Business Bureau Shares Digital Spring Cleaning Advice

Better Business Bureau (BBB; bbb.org/cybersecurity) encourages businesses to protect their digital data by conducting a spring cleaning. While you may shred and properly discard documents containing your business’s sensitive information, it is easy to forget about your digital footprint. It’s important to do a “digital spring cleaning” in addition to your regular maintenance. BBB urges businesses to do the following:

1. Keep Machines Clean

  • Keep all critical software current: This includes security software, web browsers, document readers, operating systems and any other software regularly used.
  • Clean up your mobile life: Delete unused apps and keep others current, including the operating system on your mobile device. Actively manage location services, Bluetooth, microphone, and camera, making sure apps use them appropriately.

2. Make Sure You’re Secure

  • Turn on two-step authentication, also known as two-step verification or multi-factor authentication, on accounts where available.
  • Secure your router: Make sure your router has a strong password and does not broadcast who you are through its name, such as “the Jones Family” or “123 Elm Street.” Update router software as well.
  • Create better passwords: Longer passwords and those that combine capital and lowercase letters with numbers and symbols provide better protection.
  • Have separate passwords, at least for key accounts like email, banking, and social networking, to help to thwart cybercriminals.
  • Write it down and keep it safe: Keep a list that’s stored in a safe, secure place.
  • Secure your phones: Use a passcodes or a finger swipe to unlock your phone.

3. Digital File Purge and Protection

  • Clean up your email: Save only emails you really need. Delete or archive what you don’t need and be sure to empty your deleted mail folders.
  • Manage subscriptions: Unsubscribe to newsletters, email alerts, and updates you no longer read.
  • Dispose of electronics securely: Wiping data isn’t enough. Look for facilities that shred hard drives, disks, and memory cards.
  • Back it up: Copy important data to a secure cloud site or to another drive where it can be safely stored.
  • Empty your trash or recycle bin on all devices: Make sure to permanently delete old files.

For further support, businesses can do a cyber safety check-up with Better Business Bureau’s “5 Steps to Better Business Cybersecurity” at bbb.org/cybersecurity.