Daily Archives: February 1, 2022

The 2022 tax season is upon us. With what promises to be an unusual tax filing season, below are nine updates and tips to keep in mind.

1. Tax Returns are Lagging. On January 12, the National Taxpayer Advocate issued its 2021 report to Congress. The report highlights how the IRS is substantially behind in processing returns, the breakdown of the IRS call center, delays in processing responses to IRS notices sent to taxpayers, and a myriad of other issues. The money quote? The IRS is in crisis. Read the full report here.

2. The IRS is Ramping Up Enforcement Efforts. New enforcement agents (read: auditors) that were brought on as part of the IRSs 2021 hiring spree will finish their training this month and be released to the field. It wont stop there, because on Monday, January 24, the IRS posted job openings to hire 200 more tax attorneys in 2022. A 2022 goal of reporting and recordkeeping compliance is a must for small, medium, and growing businesses.

3. Taxpayers Should File Early and Electronically. In IR-2022-08, the IRS encouraged early return filing as soon as possible and to file electronically to help minimize the effects of potential tax season problems. Doing this has set the table to place responsibility for filing acknowledgment and refund delays on the shoulders of taxpayers by giving fair warning of significant potential difficulties. In other words, if taxpayers run into a filing problem this year, the IRS can claim that We told you to file earlier!

Further, the IRS protected its flank by releasing IR-2022-18 on the first day of filing season (Monday, January 24) urg[ing] extra caution for taxpayers to file accurate tax returns electronically to speed refunds, avoid delays.

Theres an adage that you can only have two out of the fast, cheap, and accurate categories. The IRS wants fast and accurate, pushing cost onto the taxpayer. It may be a little more expensive, but using a professional is worth saving the hassle.

4. Slightly Longer Filing Deadline. The non-extended filing deadline for individuals this year is April 18. This is because the regular deadline of April 15 falls on Washington, DCs Emancipation Day, a recognized holiday for the District. Taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts get one more day, however. They celebrate Patriots Day on April 18, so they have a one-day reprieve and must file by April 19.

5. Child Tax Credit. Individuals who have received letters from the IRS regarding the Child Tax Credit have been reporting that they are inaccurate. This is the tip of the iceberg, as the information in the form is what the IRS has in its system, even if its inaccurate. Taxpayers who report different but accurate information on their returns will receive further correspondence from the IRS to sort out the discrepancies.

6. Relief has been Requested of the IRS. A coalition that included the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) sent a formal letter to the IRS requesting relief for taxpayers for the 2022 filing season. It requests that the IRS:

The full letter is here. The IRS has not yet responded.

7. Photo ID is Available for Taxpayer Security. The IRS is implementing ID.me, which utilizes facial recognition software for a taxpayer to log in to their account. In order to log in to their IRS account, the taxpayer will have to take a selfie and upload a photo of their drivers license or passport to verify their identity.

Give in to the machines if you like, but luddites will continue to exist for a long time, and the IRS will have to be able to service everyone. So, if youre skeptical about uploading a picture, use the call center, but be prepared for its long wait times. Even better, delegate the hassle to a professional.

8. Enforcement Resources Focus on Small Businesses and Self-Employeds. As a reminder, OPI (Office of Promoter Investigations think return preparers) was formed in 2021 and OFE (Office of Fraud Enforcement) was moved from LB&I (Large Business and International), both now housed in the SB/SE (Small Business/Self-Employed) Division. This provides insight on where enforcement efforts are focused.

9. Grievances Were Communicated to the IRS. Finally, the National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins hosted a conference on January 20. Ms. Collins reviewed the report to Congress mentioned above, highlighting the most serious problems and data behind the expected 2022 filing problems. The most serious problems currently are:

To illustrate just how behind the IRS is, the Taxpayer Advocate recently published the below figures, outlining the work the organization had ahead of it as of late last year.

[View source.]

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2022 Tax Filing Season: Nine Things You Need to Know - JD Supra

Happy final Friday of January! On todays Up To Speed Live, host Raquel Wilson shared the following updates:

Monday: Andy teased our 4Q21 Earnings with a special look at our Credo with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage.

Tuesday: Hans and the leadership team discussed our 4Q21 Results and the Credo Award was presented to all of us for making the launch of Ultra Wideband such a success.Thursday: We got the motivation we needed to keep our health and fitness goals strong with tips from the Health & Wellness Team.

With today being International Data Privacy Day, Andy Choi caught up with Sue Vinci, Verizons Chief Privacy Officer, to learn more about how when it comes to privacy, we all play a role. Sue pointed out that in a meaningful way all of us on the V team are members of the privacy team. But knowing all the details of best practices can be difficult due to the wide range of roles and locations of V teamers around the globe.

Be on the lookout for emails regarding training opportunities that will be launching soon. Note: depending on your role and location, you may receive multiple training invitations. Regardless of where you work or what we do, my team is here to provide support, so when you have questions please reach out to us via VZWeb, said Sue.

Raquel was joined by our Chief Product Development Officer Nicki Palmer. Nicki talked about how when millions of Americans are out and about, theyll often use public WiFi, not realizing they are putting their personal and business-related information at risk.

Each one of us should think twice before connecting our devices even with Bluetooth, warned Nicki. Although the average consumer probably doesnt have state secrets on their devices, a cyberattack can still reveal personal information, including login credentials and financial information.

While WiFi requires manual configuration which puts the onus on the user, our networks are built for privacy from the ground up with security in mind. And 5G further advances the security features already built into cellular networks and adds on new features to protect users from a variety of attacks:

Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband also offers superior speeds versus public WiFi. Our 5G network expansion means more and more people and businesses will be able to experience up to 10x higher speed than 4G.

Im so proud of our entire organizations work to not only plan, build, and operate the very best networks, but to create new products and experiences on these networks that move the world forward, said Nicki.

By now, you should know about The Ultra Challenge, an opportunity for each of us to make a video pitch about 5G Ultra in whatever form you think works best: sales pitch, poem, TikTok-style dance, the skys the limit! A selection of Retail Associates put together videos of their own to motivate all of us to take part. A big thank you to Retail Specialist Osmar Trujillo (Los Angeles), Retail Assistant Manager Javon Price (Cincinnati), Retail Specialist Andrew Hopkins (Belton, Missouri) and Retail Manager Zach Eldridge (Columbia, Missouri).

Submit your 5G Challenge video for a chance to win concert tickets, Verizon brand gear and more.

Videos can be submitted starting now. If youre uploading from a personal device, please drop your video at this link. If youre using a Verizon device, please use this link. Note: Please label your video submission with your name and business group. Plus, weve got a great resource page on VZWeb with all of our 5G Ultra info.

Verizon has scored 100 on the Corporate Equality Index and is considered a best place to work for LGBTQ+ Equality for 2022. Scoring high means we are a driving force for LGBTQ workplace inclusion with policies and practices committed to equality.

Thats why it was no surprise that Verizon was also recognized by JUST Capital and CNBC as part of the JUST 100. Not only were we listed in the top 10 of Americas Most JUST Companies, but we were also ranked #1 in our industry for our commitment to doing right by our customers, shareholders, society and, of course, our V Team.

Raquel wished a happy Lunar New Year to all those who will be celebrating on February 1. Starting Monday, our Employee Resource Group PACE will be launching a week full of events to celebrate.

If you have any questions, email them to live@verizon.com.

Click here for a transcript of the webcast.

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Built secure from the ground up. | About Verizon - Verizon News

It seems everywhere you look these days, theres some sort of misinformation floating around.

Most recently weve seen it around the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines, the 2020 US Presidential Election and 5G.

But there are other types of misinformation that are potentially more dangerous, and potentially deadly.

Weve all seen viral cooking and food hacks pop up on social media - theyre fast, bright and usually have an upbeat soundtrack.

As fun as they may be to watch, food scientist, YouTuber and author Ann Reardon is proving you cant believe everything you see.

Ann Reardon is a qualified food scientist, dietitian and mother who has found unexpected fame on YouTube.

Food in itself is fascinating, Reardon tells the Real Life podcast.

But then once you delve into the science of it, theres just so much I mean, essentially cooking is doing mini science experiments.

Youre mixing different ingredients and heating them up and seeing what the outcomes going to be - and small changes can make a big difference!

Her journey started straight out of high school.

I went to uni and did a degree in nutrition and food science, then from there, I went on to do postgraduate studies in dietetics to become a dietician.

Ann has been a community dietician, consulted for food companies and worked with young people before she started having kids.

Then motherhood intervened and she began looking for a new project.

I got into doing YouTube quite by accident when I was pregnant with my third son, I knew I had a year off (with) maternity leave, and I love, love, love little babies, but changing nappies and doing feeds and all of that stuff really didnt use that much of my mind space, and I knew that from previous kids.

So I thought Im going to start a website that I can work on during night feeds and basically just type with one hand and do all of that stuff, so I would just post once a week on the website.

I was doing blog posts every week and only did videos occasionally, if I felt like I could explain it better with a video, especially cake decorating type stuff, showing is much easier than doing.

There was virtually no videos about cake decorating back then on YouTube.

Being a YouTuber didnt exist 10 years ago, nobody knew you could make money from YouTube - you couldnt just upload and start making money.

So I started uploading weekly videos that was near the end of the year off maternity leave, and we could see that the videos were doing really well.

YouTube had emailed me saying, do you want to monetize your videos? and Id ignored it thinking yet its not actually going to make any money

I eventually filled out the form just to stop them emailing me and then realised this could become my part-time job, and I could stay at home, which is what I wanted to do.

But Ann has noticed a change in the types of videos posted to YouTube.

When I started way back then, everyone posted videos to help people you would never imagine trying to post a video that you knew was false.

But the monetisation of videos has seen what she calls content farms pop up, posting outrageous food and craft hacks that look good but are, at best impossible, and at worst, deadly.

Theres a difference between misinformation and disinformation - and thats one of them is deliberate.

If I put up a recipe and Im explaining how something works, but I didnt actually know, and the person had no background in food and thats how they thought it worked, that would be misinformation.

But if you know that what youre saying is wrong, like some of the videos say mix together, ice cream and icing sugar and youll get this beautiful, thick whipped frosting - thats physically impossible, theres no way that they did that.

Theyve switched it out for a different frosting at the end - thats disinformation, because they know that its not true, but theyre doing it for financial gain and to get views.

Weve all heard of puppy farms, places that continually breed dogs with little regard for the health or happiness of the animals, to produce and sell as many puppies as possible.

The digital equivalent is content farms, content creators who pump out viral hack videos with little regard for safety or authenticity, for clicks and cash.

So a content farm is where youve got 50 or 60 stations all filming video at once pumping out just hundreds of videos a month, all to just gain the algorithm to get heaps of views.

Theyre well produced, so they look like they should be real, and a lot of people have that misconception of why would anybody fake this?

But the trend is taking off.

More people are copying that trend now, so some of them are not content farms, some of them are just normal creators.

Normal creators now are doing the same thing, making fake content, making it look like its a real recipe and the outcome is not possible from what theyre saying or theyre doing.

Some of them can get dangerous, some of them are going to waste a lot of ingredients.

The other thing that theyre not sure about is, well if it is fake, why wouldnt YouTube or Facebook take it down? Surely if its fake, they wouldnt leave it up.

In response to Anns claims, YouTube says their Community Guidelines prohibit content that is intended to encourage dangerous activities that have an inherent risk of physical harm. According to YouTube, they use a combination of technology and people to enforce these guidelines.

While many of the fake recipes and hacks are fairly innocuous, others can be extremely dangerous.

In one case, one girl was killed and another injured in China.

They were following (a hack video) where they made a popcorn popper out of a Coke can, and you could do that safely, but it can also go very wrong if you dont know the basics of using flammable liquids.

Its presented in a way that it looks like a kid could do it and it doesnt come with any of the warnings.

One of the content farms, I saw an interview with one of their people and they said they were doing something with the burner and nearly set the whole studio and fire, but they had a fire extinguisher there, so they put it out.

None of the (videos) say you have to have a fire extinguisher next to it, so theyve got safety precautions, but the audience doesnt even get the warning.

With her How To Cook That channel, Ann tries out these recipes and hacks that have gone viral to demonstrate why they dont work.

I can watch the video and go that wont work and I know why it wont work.

Its more a matter of knowing whats going to happen but going it anyway, so that you can actually demonstrate it to people because once theyve seen it falsely work on a video, they need to see what really happens in order to sort of re-educate your mind.

As well as debunking viral hacks and rescuing cakes, Ann has been hard at work writing her first cookbook, Crazy Sweet Creations, released last year.

After 10 years, it took me a while to actually get around to doing it.

Its been going amazingly well, far better than I thought it woulda bestseller in the UK, in the US very, very exciting.

It has lots of desserts and they actually work!

Theyve been tested by multiple people to make sure everythings great, and you will get the outcome that youre supposed to get at the end of it.

Anns book Crazy Sweet Creations is available now. You can also check out the How To Cook That channel on YouTube.

You can hear Anns full interview in the Real Life podcast above. Its available now on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred podcast platform.

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7NEWS Real Life podcast: Ann Reardon's 'How To Cook That' YouTube channel busting food and cooking hacks - 7NEWS

The reality star is co-parenting her young son, Archie who she shares with ex-boyfriend Rossco Edmonds. Tyla and Rossco split in June 2019 when Archie was just seven months old.

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Love Island's Tyla explains the struggles of co-parenting

Love Island star Tyla Carr has opened up about her struggles to raise her young son amid the collapse of her romantic relationship.

The 28-year-old reality star who appeared on Love Island back in 2017, the same year as Kem Cetinay and Olivia Attwood was in a relationship with businessman Rossco Edmonds, who she shares three-year-old Archie with, but they split in 2019 seven months after their son arrived.

Tyla and Rossco are now raising their child as co-parents, but the former Love Islander has admitted it can be difficult at times.

She explained that she always wants to put her child first, but struggles with keeping the reason for her split from Rossco to herself and wants to keep her reasons secret in order to protect her young son.

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Opening up on Instagram, Tyla explained: "I thought I'd come on here and be a little bit more real about my co-parenting situation, currently in tears, it is the hardest thing ever to deal with these crappy emotions and all the agg that goes with having to break up with someone and trying to be good parent it is the hardest thing.

"I say on here you have to co-parent, be on side and make it bad. When things are good its great when things are rubbish it is horrendous.

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"Im always an advocate if co-parenting but heres some more of the reality. I'm no angel as people well know, I dont do everything right, in fact, I make mistakes everyday!

"Archie comes first an thats all I try and keep in mind"

She went on to hint that she and Rossco endured a particularly painful break-up when they split in June 2019.

She said: "You're not friends with your ex and most of the time theres bad blood so you dont get on bring a child into the mix and youve got a recipe for a real s**t storm.

"Ive never spoken about why my ex and I broke up and Im not sure I ever will (I never ever ever want my baby to know that happened, it was that bad)."

She continued: "Truth is, its not easy! Its actually the most draining thing of al trying to keep the peace for the sake of Archie.

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"At home my baby never speaks to a woman the way Ive been spoke to, or get spoken to on a regular basis. The amount of deep breaths I have to take, Im surprised I dont pass out."

During her Instagram Stories videos, Tyla could be seen getting emotional and breaking down in tears but she assured fans later that she was fine.

Uploading a snap of herself smiling, the reality star wrote: "A little cry helps get it all out your system."

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Love Island's Tyla Carr sobs over 'horrendous' co-parenting nightmare with ex - The Mirror

Modern dating is in its flop era. Intimacy is dead, daters are burned out after two years of swiping, and apps introduced a decade ago are starting to show their age.A new app, Snack, wants you to break up with photo-based dating apps. And while it's designed with Gen Z in mind, it may also be a godsend for millennials who are tired of swiping to find love.

Snack CEO Kim Kaplan knows dating: She spent 10 years optimizing marketing, revenue, and product strategies at Canadian dating site Plenty of Fish. Pre-pandemic, she started thinking about building a video-based app after discovering #singletok, where TikTok users post personal info like their name, age, and zodiac sign to attract potential dates. With the help of a syndicate of Gen Z investors, Kaplan and her team built Snack by asking, "If we were to strip away all the things [about dating apps] that you don't like, what would that look like from a social and dating experience?"

And Snack really does strip it all away. My profile showed my name, age, location, a few hashtagged interests, and my videos that's it. There's no bio or basic info like education level, job, political leanings, and height. Video prompts like "show me how tall you are by comparing yourself to another object in your room" are designed to capture your info and interests instead. Then the algorithm goes to work, identifying video elements, like "skiing," "dogs," and, yes, "fishing," to learn what you like and to surface more compatible matches.

Snack may be built for Gen Z, but millennials can still feel the love. You can choose to see potential matches up to 35 years old.Credit: Snack App

As a young-ish millennial used to swiping apps, Snack's simple design broke my brain (the app is currently available for daters aged 18 to 35, so it's definitely not just for Gen Z). It felt casual, fresh, and really fun, like flipping through my For You Page. You can flick up and down your feed to revisit profiles you've already seen and tell someone you're into them by tapping a heart button. Try swiping right or left, and the app will cheekily remind you that "swiping is old af." After a few days on Snack, Bumble and Hinge started to look more like resumes than dating apps.

And the video element definitely worked for me. After watching a guy I'd usually swipe left on boldly twerk upside down on a wall at a house party, I thought, "Yeah, I'd grab coffee with him."

Kaplan says that's the point: Watching a video, even for a few seconds, forces you to be "more intentional about the decisions you're making" versus the "low intent" of swiping on a photo. Curated photos get stale fast, especially for Gen Zers who constantly update their feeds and share their experiences, or move dating app conversations to Instagram, where they "flirt through the content that they post," says Kaplan. "Why wouldn't you just keep uploading what happened on a weekend or a night out with your friends or what you're studying?" That type of content says more about who they are than a few old pictures. "You're seeing a more authentic version of somebody," Kaplan explains. "[They're saying] here's who I am and I'm proud of who I am, and you're gonna like me for who I am."

Another element of online dating that Snack wants to see dead and buried? Ghosting.

Letting a conversation die when it fizzles, abandoning apps when life gets super busy Kaplan says that kind of "light ghosting" is super common and not a big deal to most daters. But when it comes to chronic ghosting "that actually impacts people, it creates a really negative experience for everybody else on the app." Snack has decided to try to weed out those folks. "If you continually ghost, we're not going to show you as frequently," Kaplan says. "Hopefully, that changes the behavior and gets people to be more open and honest with the other party about what's going on."

She points to last week's West Elm Caleb uproar, noting that Snack would have kept a lot of the women involved from ever seeing Caleb on the app.

The goal for Snack is, "How do we make it easier for you to enjoy and laugh and engage with what people are doing [on a dating app], just like you would on TikTok?" Kaplan says. After all, "Dating is meant to be fun, right?"

Related Video: How Tinder and other dating apps use algorithms to find your match

The rest is here:

Snack is a dating app for the TikTok generation - Mashable

We always talk about the importance of protecting data but just how much data is there in the world? And what can you do to keep your sensitive data away from prying eyes? Lets explore the answers to both of these questions

Data is the lifeblood of your organization. Its what allows you to make informed business decisions, improve the quality of your products, provide better services to your customers, and make your organization more secure. Your most sensitive data customer information, intellectual property, and trade secrets is invaluable, and cybercriminals know it. This is why getting access to your data is often the primary objective for threat actors targeting your business.

But how much data does your business have? Moreover, how much data is in the world as a whole? And how secure is all of this wealth of information? And what steps can you take to make your organizations data more secure?

Thats a lot of big questions with a lot of variables. But as we always love to say around here

Lets hash it out.

If youre wondering how much digital data is in the world well, the answer depends on the source you look at and what factors they include in their calculations. PwC estimated that the digital universe was anticipated to reach 44 zettabytes of data by 2020. Of course, this data was originally reported back in 2018, and their report was based on an IDC data projection that dated back to 2012!

Considering were now in 2022 and the daily data creation growth rate, that number is basically old news. However, it provides some idea of context when it comes to the massive amount of data that exists within our digital universe. Now, lets consider some more recent data.

In March 2021, IDC reported that more than 64 zettabytes of data were created or replicated in 2020 alone. Their latest DataSphere forecasts a 23% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in data creation and replication between 2000-2025.

Okay, throwing these numbers around is all fine and well but what does all of this really mean in terms of how much data is in the world? If youre not a mathematician, its likely that a zettabyte means nothing to you. (Its basically gibberish to me as well!) So, before we go any further in talking about data statistics, lets quickly explore what a zettabyte actually means by giving this term a little context.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) provides a valuable table to put a zettabyte and other incomprehensible numbers into context.

For those of my fellow readers who arent particularly math- or numbers-inclined, lets simplify it a bit more: every time you move up to the next data size level, you tack on three more 0s. So, a kilobyte (1,000 bytes) becomes a megabyte (1,000,000 bytes), and a megabyte becomes a gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes). With this in mind, that means that 64 zettabytes (i.e., 64,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of data were either created or replicated in 2020 alone.

Okay, all of this is great to know but what does it all really mean? Lets put it into some context.

Netflix says that it takes about 3 GB of data to watch one hour of high-definition streaming video on your device. With this in mind, it means that Netflix requires about 72 GB of data to stream high-definition video content per day. So, thats 26,280 gigabytes of data per year. Putting it another way, thats:

This means that it takes 26.28 terabytes of data to stream HD Netflix shows or movies 24/7 on your device and were still nowhere near even one zettabyte.

Say, you were to record 1 ZB of data to CDs and store each of those discs in a standard case to protect it. If Ive done my math correctly (fingers crossed), this means it would take 1,428,571,428,571 CDs, stacked in their cases, to hold 1 zettabyte of information. Now, consider that it takes approximately 30 CD cases, when laying flat, to equal one foot in height. This means your massive stack of encased discs would stand approximately 47,619,047,619 feet tall (9,018,759 miles)!

Feeling lost? Lets make this a little easier by using a well-known New York City landmark for reference. The Empire State Building, the sixth tallest building in the United States, stands 1,454 feet tall (including the spire and antenna). This means the building stands the equal height of 43,620 stacked CD cases. This means that 1 zettabyte of data saved on stacked discs would be as tall as 32,750,377 Empire State Buildings standing on top of one another!

As another example, consider that the sun is roughly 93 million miles from Earth. (or, 92,900,000 miles if youd like to be more specific). If you were to put 93 million miles in terms of stacking CDs inside their cases, that means this life-giving red giant is approximately 16,368,000,000 stacked discs away from our planet.

Now, consider that weve been calculating these numbers based on 1 ZB of data. If you calculate this for 64 ZB of data, its the equivalent of 577,200,576 miles of stacked disc cases. So, if youre stacking CD cases with discs full of data, that stack would span the distance from Earth to the sun more than six times!

Categories of data expand far beyond any list wed have time to put together. Basically, if you have data, it needs to be secure and have backups available for when something goes wrong. But what are some examples of the types of data that organizations need to keep secure? Lets take a quick gander:

Thats a lot of data. Now that we know what kinds of data you need to protect, its time to see how companies store this wealth of information.

Data storage methods range from one organization to the next. Your organizations data storage needs will likely be different from those of other organizations in part because of the types of data you need to store. Here are a few of the ways you can store data:

Some companies store all of their data onsite while others store everything in the cloud. There are some organizations that adopt hybrid cloud approaches storing some data in the cloud and other data on prem that fall somewhere in the middle and offers the best of both worlds. And, finally, there are larger enterprises that are adopting multi-cloud strategies, which means that they use two or more cloud vendors.

So, what methods do enterprises and other organizations use to store their data and support their workloads? Lets explore the following survey-based predictions data from the Spiceworks report The 2022 State of IT:

You can see the shift in how organizations are breaking up their IT budgets:

Entrusts 2021 Global Encryption Trends Study data shows that three in five (60%) of organizations transfer sensitive or confidential data to the cloud whether or not it is encrypted. Basically, this means theyre uploading plaintext data to servers that unauthorized individuals could potentially access without having some other data security mechanism such as tokenization or data masking in place to make that data unusable. Not a good idea, and certainly not an industry best practice!

Regardless of which approach your organization takes, the big takeaway here is that you need to store this data as securely as possible. This can be done in several ways, depending on the platform or data storage method in question. And no matter which method you choose, just make sure that you have multiple current backups of your data!

Asking why you need to secure your data is like asking why you breathe: its a necessity for life in this case, the life of your organization. Taking steps to encrypt your data is necessary for operating a business or organization. After all, if you dont protect your customers and organizations most sensitive assets, you likely wont remain in business very long. Or, at the very least, youll suffer major financial setbacks and reputational harm.

Cyber security and data security best practices exist for a reason use them to your advantage and keep your valuable data safe and secure. Of course, there are plenty of reasons why you need (and should want) to keep your data secure. Here are a few quick ones:

Data from Sonicwall shows that ransomware increased substantially in Q3 2021. Many modern ransomware attacks are double-edged swords: attackers not only prevent you from accessing your data, but they also may choose to steal your data so they can use it, publish it online or sell it to other bad guys. And they frequently do this regardless of whether you agree to pay the demanded ransom.

By and large, bad guys want easy targets; theyre looking for the low-hanging fruit that offers a potentially big payday for the least amount of effort. Why work harder when they can work smarter, right? While it may be a challenge to be the most secure company in your industry, you should at least be more secure than your competitors.

Spoiler alert: customers want to do business with companies and organizations that they have confidence in. Your customers are going to have a hard time trusting you if you cant be bothered to protect their sensitive data and information.

2021 research from Okta and YouGov shows that 47% of customers will completely cut ties with companies that experience data breaches or reportedly misuse data. Furthermore, their survey respondents also indicate the following:

Needless to say, having ineffective security measures can result in losses of customer relationships, sales, profits, and future business opportunities.

Ever heard of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? How about the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS)? HIPAA? CCPA? The list of regulations goes on and on. These are all powerful data security regulations that require the secure storage and transmission of data. If youre not compliant with them, youll quickly find yourself in the hot seat and facing substantial fines. Amazon learned that the hard way when they got hit with a $887 million fine for GDPR violations.

Still struggling with coming to terms with having to invest the time, money, and other resources to securing data? Ask yourself the following rhetorical question: Why bother generating or collecting valuable information if youre just going to hand it over to your competitors, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized users without a fight?

When it comes to data security in the internet age, a central part of the conversation revolves around encryption and the framework of technologies, processes, and procedures that support it. Public key infrastructure, or PKI, is what makes secure data transmissions and communications possible on public networks.

We wont get into everything PKI entails in a technical sense here; thatll take way too much time and take us off the topic at hand. However, you can put public key infrastructure to work to help keep your data secure both while its at rest and in transit.

Heres a quick overview of some ways that you can make your IT infrastructure and data more secure:

Of course, theres another critical element to keeping data secure: you need to know where every bit of data is located and who (or what) has access to it. This entails performing regular audits and maintaining a current inventory of assets. You cant protect what you dont know you have.

Securing your data is both an industry best practice and a regulatory requirement. And from a customers perspective, keeping their data secure is a requirement if you want to keep their business. If they dont believe their data is secure with you, then research shows theyre likely to voice their dissatisfaction with their wallets by business with your competitors.

To stay compliant with industry regulations, protect your brands sterling reputation, and maintain customer relationships, its vital to view data security as a primary focus. Now that you have some idea of how much data there is in the world and why its so important, its easy to see why you must do everything possible to keep it secure.

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How Much Data Is in the World (And How Do You Secure It)? - Hashed Out by The SSL Store