No one goes into business hoping to lose everything in a lawsuit. The point of doing business is to make and build a solid return on the capital investment you are making towards your future financial security. When it comes to securing against legal actions in the corporate world, you cannot be too careful. For many business owners, constantly facing litigation is simply part of doing business,according to Gilbert & Bourke, LLP. For other business owners, it is not a matter of if their business will be sued, but rather, it is more a matter of when. From clients to in-house employees, legal action can emerge from any number of angles. This is why it is important to take as many precautions as possible to limit such legal actions, taken against your business, to a minimum.
Data Breaches Lead to Legal Action
It is common to see how technology, despite being an important part of how businesses operate, tends to open businesses up to more litigation issues. It seems that hardly a day goes by where a business is not endangered by some sort of breach in its use of technology. In most cases, the breach involves the exposure of sensitive data. Information, such as social security numbers, customer credit card numbers and private employee files, is hacked and leaked to any number of places. When this happens, it puts more than businesses in danger. According to Kim Zetter at Wired.com, in the case of the recent data breaches experienced by Sony, the tech giant is now being sued by former employees. Lending to the weight of this litigation action is the fact that Sony had been hacked before. With sensitive data left unencrypted, along with security measures remaining lax, former employees ended up having their private information exposed. In such a case, failure to safeguard private information, namely data which should have remained outside the reach of hackers, may ultimately cause Sony to take more legal hits in the not so distant future. If businesses are wanting to try their very best at avoiding the same pit-falls, it could be very beneficial to look at a website similar to https://ifortress.com/scif or others that can provide physical safeguarding and cybersecurity measures for sensitive business information and data.
Another Common Technology-Based Vulnerability
Another area that opens a door to potential litigation for businesses is in the area of Near Field Communication technology. Near Field Communication technology allows for money to be transferred between smart devices and electronic payment receivers in retail stores. This is another area where hackers are able to take advantage of consumers, stealing sensitive information, such as credit card numbers while legitimate transactions are being executed. A consumer may argue that a retail store or a smart device manufacturer, for example, was negligent in not providing enough protection for the secure transaction of electronic payments.
In essence, it is a smart idea to consider how implementing new technology into your business may turn out to make your business vulnerable to legal action. With this type of forward thinking, it may help you to determine if using such technology in your business is worth the risks. It is important to remember that part of your job as a business owner involves limiting these types of liabilities. This will help you to spend more time running your business than wasting time in court.