Zinc Blog

The Internet allows online transactions to take place, but they must be properly protected so that hackers and cybercriminals don’t make off with your sensitive data. Here are some simple ways you can ensure that your business is protecting its online transactions.

Cybercrime is a concern for businesses of all—and we mean all—sizes, from the small mom-and-pop shop down the road to the multinational enterprises, and it’s a concern for a variety of reasons. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that these massive businesses worry about cyber incidents and see if there isn’t some common ground.

If you read our blog regularly, you probably saw the post we shared the other day talking about the various cybersecurity issues that your business could very well be damaged by without the right precautions. We wanted to build on that conversation, so what follows are the measures to help you take these precautions.

How can you distinguish your presence in your industry when your customers anticipate a top-notch experience at every juncture? Businesses can gain a substantial advantage over competitors by harnessing the power of cutting-edge technology solutions, such as online ordering, mobile applications, and e-commerce platforms, which streamline access to services and products. Let's discuss how the latest technological advancements can be used to improve your business.

The vehicles of today are equipped with countless features that previously did not exist, but this also makes them vulnerable in ways that older cars simply are not. Today, we want to explore what this growing smart car trend means for the security of vehicles.

Data privacy has never been such an important issue for businesses and individuals alike. In some places, calls for overarching legislation to protect consumers have often been met with significant pushback by lawmakers who are reluctant to put extra regulations on businesses, while others have passed important laws dictating how organizations handle individual data. 

Encryption, like so many elements of cybersecurity, is often seen as just another buzzword that the public simply doesn’t need to concern themselves with… but as cyberattacks continue at their current rates, the opposite is the actual truth. Let’s talk about what encryption is, and why it has become more important than ever that it is put into practice in both professional and private life.

Data is commonly regarded as one of a business’ most valuable resources. As such, it is critical that you protect it from threats of all kinds, including data leaks. Data leaks are nothing to take lightly, as their impacts range from a serious hit to your business’ reputation to an equally serious hit to your business’ finances. Obviously, this is something to be avoided, so let’s discuss how you can do so.

Hackers and scammers are everywhere and are continuously littering your business with situations that could put its operations in jeopardy. One of the most hacked industries is healthcare, as hackers make a point at going after patient information. Let’s go through some of the reasons why hackers find health data so attractive. 

Data is a critical asset for modern businesses, simply because it can be utilized to help improve an organization’s operations in a variety of ways. Let’s explore some of the various approaches you can take to leveraging the data you collect to add value to your business.

Digital storage has been evolving with the development of reliable and long-lasting devices with extremely fast storage and massive storage capacity. The innovation of the solid state drive (SSD) has changed the outlook of storage somewhat, but large-capacity SSDs can be expensive. The hard disk drive (HDD) is still a cost-effective alternative, but it is a mechanical device, which, over time, will be prone to failure. 

Microsoft Excel is a really useful tool for organizing data. Using something called a heat map strategy can help you get more out of the solution. If you actively use spreadsheets in your business to contextualize data, you will find this easy-to-use tip for using heat maps really useful.

Most businesses leverage the cloud in at least some capacity, whether cloud-based apps or cloud-based infrastructure. In any case, using the cloud comes with inherent security questions that must be addressed during the planning, implementation, and launch phases of any solution. Let’s go over some of the ways you might protect data and applications stored in the cloud.

In our blog, we talk about security and data breaches all the time. We tell you how you can take efforts to avoid them and how to prepare your organization for the inevitability of being exposed to them. With all that security talk, we should briefly describe the difference between a security breach and a data breach, because they are two different things that get lumped together quite a bit.

When a disaster strikes your business and your important data is compromised, can your business recover? Can it recover quick enough for it to not be irreparably damaged? Could you even conduct business without the lost data? How much downtime can your business even take? 

If you know how to use functions and various other features that Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets have to offer, then you can take your skills one step further than most. One such feature is the use of dropdown menus within cells. Let’s discuss how you can use them to your benefit in both Excel and Sheets.

We know that security is far from a small investment, but this only serves to highlight how important it can be to your business’ continued success. You might wonder why security is such an important investment if you don’t intend to suffer a data breach, and that’s precisely the point. The cost of not investing in security far outweighs the initial investment.

We frequently discuss the importance of keeping PII—personally identifiable information—secure, but what does this include? What data qualifies as PII?

Here, we’re going to lock down on a definition (and you may be surprised by what this definition covers).

In August, LastPass suffered a data breach that allowed hackers to access the LastPass source code. Let’s take a look at this situation and see what you need to do to maintain proper password security moving forward.

We bet you’ve gone through your old files at some point to clean things up a bit by deleting files from your computer. What if we told you that deleting those files doesn’t actually delete them—at least not entirely? Let’s go over how you can securely delete your files for good while you go about replacing hardware or upgrading your technology systems.