With a greater reliance on the use of IT systems to support the overall mission of an organization, businesses need to understand the importance of implementing data governance protocols into its overall employment practices. Securing the accessibility of mission-critical information is just one of the major tenets to a businesses long-term viability, and unless an organization takes necessary action to manage that process, the potentiality for a fatal business interruption is magnified.
“Accessibility” of mission-critical information can mean anything from how one goes about protecting and cultivating intellectual property to the deliverable mechanisms that put knowledge asset management into an operational model. However, transferring this into actual practice can prove challenging for any business regardless of its size. One simple method is to establish authentication procedures for employees that are limited, and on a need-to-know basis. Allowing carte blanche access to mission-critical information, or knowledge thereof, is a recipe for disaster.
Take for instance a business in Austin, TX, nevermind it is a sports bar where women dressed in jean shorts and bikini’s serve patrons, where an ex-employee was charged with hacking into the businesses computer system, and wiped its financial data from the business records. The ex-employee was mad that the company had fired him, and then refused to pay unemployment benefits. The business interruption by the small business could have been prevented had they simply changed the authentication procedures after the employee was fired.