According to a recent article in Forbes your credit card is worth 25 cents. That might not sound like a lot. But when you hear about security breaches in the news, it’s not just one card, but millions that are scooped up and made available to potential scammers.

That’s a lot of quarters!

That same article states that your electronic medical records might be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

So obviously the allure is there for bad guys to seek out weak links and test security protocols constantly. It’s becoming a very high stakes game of cat and mouse and the public’s faith in organizations’ ability to safeguard their privacy is getting shakier with every headline-making breach.

Read on and I’ll tell you a little later what we’ve done to address this threat lately.

A lot has changed in the last 10 years. Let’s take credit cards and health records off the table for a minute and just think about how much companies know about you compared to a decade ago.

It wasn’t that long ago that all the data used for marketing could be found in a phone book. Today we are all tracked through the websites we visit and the purchases we make, and things we post. Our digital footprints are complete and last forever.

For the most part we’ve been conditioned to accept this scenario, or at least not think about it very much. But the truth is, it doesn’t take much for our data to spill out into the hands of nefarious characters.

So the onus is on companies, like ours, to protect the data we’re trusted with. And we do take it very seriously indeed. It’s important our clients know and believe that data security is our priority and that we embrace real accountability through constant innovation.

Always in Beta

One of the principles that we hold dear is our “Always in Beta” philosophy. We’re always looking for opportunities. But we’re always on the lookout for threats, too.

In the last year, we’ve made serious commitments to protecting client data. These steps include:

• Hiring a top hacker to test our systems and make sure they are secured against both internal and external threats — this is called a vulnerability test
• Using our secure FTP every time we receive and send files
• Enhancing our ransomware protection
• Upgrading hardware and software
• Police checks with staff
• Increased physical security

Protecting data security is only going to become more important as the profit incentive for criminals increases in the next couple of years. Guarding your information should be the number one priority of your vendor. Be sure to ask them what they’re doing to earn your business and protect your data from becoming the next headline-making headache.