A digital asset is anything that exists in a digital format that you can use with the proper rights. Digital assets can include PDFs, videos, audio files, images, or designs. Businesses store digital assets to be able to use throughout their organization when needed. However, depending on how and where your assets are stored, there may be questions as to how to protect your assets.
These days, nearly every thing a company does is online. So you can assume that at any given time, there is a plethora of digital data and assets to protect. Since there are copyright and privacy laws in place for all forms of digital assets, your organization needs to ensure that theirs are safe.
What is digital property?
Digital property covers a wide array of digital assets. Digital property includes internet accounts (social, client facing, and software accounts), data such as contact lists, or internal documents, visual assets, and anything that exists in the digital world of your organization. Whether stored locally or in the cloud, anything that has an impact on your organization is considered digital property.
How do I protect my company’s digital assets?
- The easiest and most common way to ensure the safety of your digital assets is by having a secure Wi-Fi network. Assets can fall into the wrong hands when there are weaknesses in your network. Keeping operational systems and cloud-based applications up to date also ensures more protection.
- Permissioning and secure authentication also help with the protection of digital assets. Limiting who can access your and share your digital assets makes it easier to keep track of what any given person is doing with those assets. Secure authentication is a common tool to use when only certain people should be able to access assets.
- Setting up cyber security programs and protocols, although costly, can be the most efficient way to protect your company’s digital assets. Cyber security firms often set in impenetrable digital walls around your assets to ensure proper protection.
What are the two ways to protect digital property?
Let’s say your team is working on a campaign and had a photoshoot that resulted in proprietary images; those images are your company’s digital property. Digital property can also go beyond that and include email lists, employee information, and any other digital assets stored in the cloud or on a server.
You can protect these types of assets in two ways. One, you can create protective agreements such as non-disclosure agreements and have employees, clients, or consultants sign them. Having these kinds of contracts in place can ensure that should anything happen with your digital assets, legal action can be taken.
Second, you can register digital assets to your company. For example, images, videos, processes, and content can be copyrighted. If your digital assets there is no confusion about who owns the rights to these assets. And again, should these assets succumb to copyright infringement, your company can take legal action.
What are digital property rights?
Digital property rights are the legal rights that you, as a representative of a company, have the right to do with digital assets. Essentially, digital assets and digital property rights are intellectual property. You have the right to take action against hackers, other organizations, or even internal threats to your digital property rights if you have patent violations, license infringement, copyright infringement, or trademark infringement.
How can companies keep their information assets safe?
Companies need to take certain measures to keep their digital assets safe. A company can run anti-virus software, two-factor authentication, restrict data by permissions, and encrypt certain digital assets that are of high value. Taking these measures ensures that your digital assets will be protected.