What cleaning computer viruses can teach you

In my spare time I run a little PC service repair business, mostly for friends and family. It’s mostly cleaning computer viruses, installing wireless networks and sometimes building gaming systems.

No matter what the job is, however, I always end up lecturing the owners about security and data backup. I recently worked on a system that had years of digital photos on it, gigabytes worth, and none of them were backed up. The machine caught a virus and put all of those memories at risk.

Back up your data, encrypt your Wi-Fi, and keep your OS and security software updated. And here’s another tip about file sharing. This is the kind of common-sense stuff that every person who owns or operates technology, from servers to smartphones, should do. It rarely gets done.

Is it any wonder that we see the same security issues in the enterprise? As I’ve noted before, security is a major risk factor, and it should be everybody’s business. If you want to hear it from the experts, log on to our free online seminar next week, Enterprise Risk Management: Mitigation Strategies for Today’s Global Enterprise