Watch Your Power
Develop an alternate power supply. Backup generation, which can keep your computer running for a short period of time during a power outage, can help prevent data loss. If the cost of data re-entry is high, backup power might be a very cost-effective alternative.

Protect against power surges
Sudden power surges and spikes can be caused by electrical storms or can even occur randomly. The result: lost data and, occasionally, damaged equipment. Good surge protectors cost little more than $100 and are always a wise investment.
When the air is crackling, disconnect the modem. Electricity can easily travel through telephone lines during an electrical storm, and can damage computer equipment through your modem. So: when in doubt, disconnect it.

Be sure you're insured
Your insurance policies should cover your hardware and software. Check with your agent. Data and records, however, are another matter. But just the same, ask about the availability and cost of critical records coverage.

Guard Yourself
Implement a password system. Passwords help prevent unauthorized use of your system, and are an absolute must in today's business environment. Another tip: change passwords frequently.

Protect your files
Most sophisticated software allows you to grant system access on a selective basis. One employee, for instance, might be granted access to your accounts payable data, but nothing else, while another employee might be limited to your electronic checking account records.

Segregate responsibilities
By all accounts, computer crime is on the increase. One of the best preventive steps is to segregate both manual and computer responsibilities, preventing any single employee from obtaining the tools necessary to manipulate the system or cover up theft.

Back it up
The most important security rule of all: back it up! Back up your drive, with all your data, weekly or daily (or even more frequently), depending on the volume of transactions. A rule of thumb: you should never be in a position where re-entry of data requires more than a day's labor.

Keep your backups safe
Keep your backup disks or tape in a safe place, preferably miles away from your business location. Some possibilities: in a fireproof office safe, at an office across town, at your home, or at a commercial data center (an increasingly popular resource). If you back up extensive amounts of data, consider a "round robin" arrangement, where you always have between two and four backups circulating among as many locations at any given time. Here, whenever a fresh backup is sent to location # 1, its backup is moved to location # 2, and so on.

Keep a paper trail
Since you may need to re-enter data at some point, be sure your paper audit trail is strong and clear.
Develop emergency operating procedures. Prepare yourself for a natural disaster or sudden loss of data. Even if you've adequately backed up data, how will you restore it and get your system running again? If you have to run without computers for a short time, do you have adequate paper-based systems in place? Emergency procedures help answer these questions.
Limit physical access. Who should have access to computer systems containing sensitive data? Only those employees who need access.

Allow business use only
Computer viruses are often spread from diskette to diskette and diskette to drive. Under no circumstances, allow employees or colleagues to load personal software into your business computer. For that matter, don't load any software into your system that doesn't come shrink-wrapped from a reputable supplier.

Take care in downloading
Many computer viruses enter a system when files are downloaded from electronic bulletin boards or electronic software exchanges. Download with care.

Give your computer periodic checkups
Increasingly, computer users run anti-viral software daily. While no software can provide absolute protection against viruses, anti-viral packages greatly diminish the probability that a virus will strike your system.

Ask for help
If you're not sure of the data security risks you face, ask for help from a consultant. He or she can help you assess the greatest information-related threats to your business, and help you minimize the risks you face.

Care for Your System
Watch the food and drink. Keep foods and beverages away from your computer equipment. That means no sipping coffee while working at the keyboard.

Maintain the right temperature
While a dry, cool environment is best, most computer equipment tolerates a wide range of temperature and humidity variations. But watch out for excessively warm or damp rooms; they will invariably spell trouble.

Clean your computer
A large proportion of system crashes occur because of simple dust and dirt. Have your CPU, keyboard and printer professionally cleaned on a regular basis.

Write everything down
Your computer protection and security program should be just that: a program. Once you've developed concrete procedures to safeguard your data, write them down and either take on the responsibility of administering them yourself or assign the responsibility to a trusted employee.

Don't minimize the threat of a computer disaster by claiming that "it can't happen to me." It can. And, in some fashion, it probably will. Computers are machines and, even in the absence of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, viruses and computer crime, machines can suddenly break down for inexplicable reasons.

It's a real comfort to know that, when you're searching for the cause of a breakdown, your vital business information is safe. And equally reassuring is the knowledge that you can get the system up and running again with a minimum of effort and expense.