Top 3 Business Sectors That Must Prioritize Data Security
It has gotten easier these days for businesses to take advantage of modern cybersecurity measures. This is a notion we touched on while identifying some of the specific ways small businesses can protect customer data, and it’s a very positive development. By investing in technology, educating employees on security practices, and enforcing cybersecurity methods, businesses of all sizes today can ensure they’re doing all they can to make sure they don’t experience attacks or breaches that put data at risk.
At the same time though, there are some types of businesses for which data security is of particular importance. These businesses need to go above and beyond where the aforementioned security measures and safeguards are concerned. The following are some that come to mind in this respect.
1. Healthcare Businesses
We don’t necessarily think of healthcare as an industry in which new businesses are emerging with fresh concerns. Rather, we tend to boil the industry down to massive, established companies with the resources to piece together robust data security. However, with the rise of telemedicine of late, we are in fact seeing more healthcare startups taking root. Indeed, investment in telehealth startups has been significant of late, resulting in the rise of countless new companies with viable paths to major success and widespread influence. And for these companies, an emphasis on data security will be of paramount importance. Clients (essentially patients in this case) entrust a great deal of personal information to healthcare businesses, which in turn need to guarantee as best they can that that information is protected.
2. Mobile Apps
A mobile app can be either a vital arm of a broader business or, increasingly, a business unto itself. We may think of apps in somewhat flippant terms, as casual tools, games, or sources of entertainment. But according to one resource for people exploring starting app businesses, global revenue for these handy mobile tools topped $461 billion in 2019. This speaks to the fact that apps are big business now, and represent countless competitive, high-earning companies.
The very way in which mobile app businesses operate, though, necessitates special care for data security. These businesses are designed to interact directly with clients and gather information about them. This is one reason the businesses are so efficient when it comes to marketing, developing customer experiences, and ultimately generating revenue. But the close connection to customers also means that a lot of data is at play, and it needs to be protected.
3. Fintech Companies
A few years ago, “fintech” was essentially a buzzword that was used to describe everything from vague technological advancements in banking practices to the emerging cryptocurrency market. Over time though, it’s become a significant category of business spawning countless new startups. The growing interest in fintech has been driven by everything from a lack of trust in traditional financial services to a realization that more digitized financial practices can accomplish great things. Whatever the specific case though, there are now innumerable businesses facilitating tech-driven twists on personal financial practices.
Here, too, the need for strong data security is particularly clear. While fintech companies vary greatly in their practices and purposes, most of them by nature involve the transfer and storage of financial information over digital systems. Cybersecurity vulnerabilities in this sort of space cannot be tolerated.
These of course are not the only types of businesses for which data security matters. But they do illustrate the notion that some of the trendiest and busiest industries today are particularly dependent on keeping data safe. It’s likely that things will only continue to move in this direction, and that makes it worthwhile to keep an eye on these industries for potential models of successful data protection.
