Issues with digital security

Privacy always gets outshined by convenience and that’s something which can never be balanced. The more businesses automate and digitise, the more rights they give up and may take a step forward toward a data leak. These days, collaboration and communication have become easier than ever. Employees can work remotely, they can access documents on their smart devices and check in with their colleagues while on the go. While this working culture is unquestionably positive, there remains a dark side as well – the risk of data leaks.

Data breaches have gained lots of attention as businesses become increasingly reliant on workforce mobility, cloud computing, and digital data. With sensitive business data stored on cloud servers, on enterprise databases, and on local machines, leaking a company’s data has become quite simple. Availability of personally identifiable information is endless, from medical health records of patients to credit cards to driver licenses, and so on. One just needs to find an open window and may need to create some tools that can make a data leak happen for him/her.

What you can do to prevent data leaks

For most organizations, securing sensitive data has become one of the top priorities in today’s digitized business environment. Although you cannot prevent your organizations from being targeted by hackers, you can surely take some important steps to stop them from accessing your sensitive business data. Let’s have a look at these steps.

Securing data backup

Many businesses depend on cloud storage providers when it comes to back up their business information. Sometimes, they may not exactly understand how that data is protected. Going through the service agreement will help you get a clear idea of the security measures in place. These include the steps your provider takes to protect your data like who can access that data, what happens to it if you terminate the agreement etc.

Using a VPN

VPNs can help you prevent data leaks to a great extent. They not only offer online privacy but also protect you from hackers and malicious third-parties. However, there’re some things that you’d need to keep in mind when implementing a VPN service. First of all, stay away from free ones as those may collect personal information and data. Second, you should make sure that your subscription includes security features like leak protection and kill switches, a privacy disclaimer, among others. To learn more about how this widely-used and fastest security solution can help you out, click on the given link.

Enforcing restrictive data permissions

Regulatory agencies, vendors, third-party suppliers, employees etc all interact with sensitive business data at some point. Usually, they’re given access to it to facilitate their activities. However, it’s recommended to restrict what they can access. Ideally, you should chalk out restrictive data permissions to ensure employees, as well as other stakeholders, can only access the crucial information which is necessary for their activities. Controlling the type of information all these people can access and download is crucial for lowering your exposure to data leaks.

Protecting data endpoints

Data endpoints are the systems used by your employees like laptops, desktops, smart devices etc. These are the devices where sensitive data and intellectual property resides or passes through. Endpoint solutions let administrators control the devices are in use. They can also see when these have been used, by who and the information that was downloaded or accessed. You should have robust security policies governing the use of devices. Since employees often store sensitive information like documents or emails on their tablets and smartphones, your policy has to cover areas like screen locks, downloads, and password complexity.

Can a data leak bring benefit to a business?

Almost everyone is aware of the consequences that a business needs to face in the event of a data leak. These may include short-lived bad publicity, a class-action lawsuit, a short-term dip in the stock prices etc. You may wonder why some businesses don’t put their best foot forward to prevent data leaks despite the negative consequences. A study on the cost of a data breach revealed that in 2018, the average cost per data breach stood at $3.86 million and in the U.S. it was $7.91 million.

That may sound a lot to common people but to a business whose annual revenues revolve around hundreds of millions, it’s something like a rounding error. On the other hand, you need to consider the costs of protection. On average, businesses spend 3.3 percent of revenues on IT. A study revealed that the amount, on average, spent by large organizations was $5.9 million on a breach.

Just assume that businesses pay insurance when the cost is substantially less compared to the true incidents, chances are that the yearly expense becomes even lower compared to the incident costs. In short, to some businesses, breach and protection costs are pretty small and thus, they get little attention from the management.