Hotel Cybersecurity: 7 Crucial Protective Measures
The hospitality industry, travel agencies, websites, and other entities constantly work with personal data. That is why they must have effective cybersecurity mechanisms to manage and protect that sensitive information. Ensuring data privacy will improve the corporate image and, by extension, increase the trust of both customers and suppliers.
In addition to having technological platforms that manage this information, we should involve both employees and potential collaborators. The emphasis is on training and awareness in the cybersecurity field. Therefore, it will be necessary to implement a series of security measures and good practices to protect the information. Here are some tips to take into consideration:
1. Control of access to information
It will be of great importance to have a security policy that defines and classifies the information, making it clear who and under what conditions will access that type of information. This control will aim to prevent information leaks and unauthorized personnel from accessing confidential information.
2. Backups
It is one of the main protection measures whose main objective is to prevent the loss of information or the systems that store it. It is essential to do regular backups, making sure that they contain all the relevant information. Finally, it will be necessary to ensure that all responsible personnel undergoes training to learn how to recover the data if necessary.
3. Password management
For security reasons, the services and systems where the information is managed must be under the guardianship of user credentials. In addition to a username, a password must be entered as solidly built as possible by using lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and special characters. The passwords must be periodically updated and safely removed when necessary. Poorly guarded passwords can lead to unauthorized access to an organization’s data and services.
4. Data encryption
Both sensitive and confidential information and the devices or media that contain it, such as databases, records, emails, etc., require special protection. In addition to controlling their access, it will be necessary to encrypt the data they host. In this way, you will avoid leaks or manipulations, guaranteeing its confidentiality and integrity.
5. Updates
All software is susceptible to improvement and, therefore, updates, either for security reasons or for adding new functionalities. This includes firmware for electronic equipment, operating systems, and computer applications, including antimalware products. Therefore, your hotel should be up-to-date in terms of updates and security patches to avoid being victims of unwanted attacks.
6. Safe deletion of information
Once the information is no longer necessary for an organization, this means that it has reached the last phase of its life cycle. This data should be deleted safely so that it is no longer accessible, thus avoiding possible accidental diffusions or unwanted data breaches.
7. Confidentiality in contracting services
Suppose it is necessary to contract specialized external services that require the exchange of information. In that case, they must have a good protection capacity, both hosted by the provider and in transit. Comprehensively ensuring our systems will be useless if we do not demand that same level of security from external providers.
Conclusion
By following these basic guidelines, you will be able to protect the information you manage and transmit a positive image of your organization, generating trust in both customers and suppliers. Protecting and correctly working with data in the hospitality industry should be one of the main priorities since they are the backbone of the tourism sector.
