Today’s hackers hack for the same reason their peers in traditional thievery steal: to steal money from someone. Sometimes they work alone, often they work in online gangs (or hacker groups or rings), and a growing number of them are backed by governments. Digital thieves are constantly on the lookout for data to steal—personal information, financial records, intellectual property, or whatever valuable data they can get. They may then use this data to steal money from bank accounts or to set up credit cards, or they may simply sell the personal information to a third party. Your task is to do all you can to protect your precious business data from them. Your network, computers, mobile devices—you must protect everything from their attacks. Remember that security is only one half of complete protection. It’s vital that you also implement a proper backup strategy for your business. Security is great for keeping hackers away from your data, but if your data is corrupted or lost, how can you recover it? You can only recover it if it’s backed up. Here are eight simple things you can do to protect your business data:

1. Conduct a security audit
2. Make staff aware of the important role they play in security
3. Use strong and multiple passwords.
4. Encrypt your data.
5. Back up
6. Have security policies.
7. Protect your mobile work force
8. Implement a multiple-security-technology solution

Securing your business’s data is not easy, and it takes expertise. However, you can implement very practical and simple solutions (such as these tips) to ensure that when a hacker sniffs around your network or computers, he (or she) will move on to another victim—because your infrastructure is not worth the trouble of hacking into it. Think about your average street mugger. They want to steal a purse or wallet from the victim they think is most vulnerable, so they can get away with their crime as easily as possible. One of the most important things you can do is to educate your employees in security best practices and ensure that they know how important their role is in securing business data.