It’s safe to say modern organizations can’t live without data and all the insights it holds. Talk about that one thing that fuels innovation and drives growth. But this reliance on data exposes them to threats (cyberattacks, human error, etc.).
You don’t want these villains to win. Otherwise, financial loss, reputational damage, and even legal repercussions would be the possible aftermaths. The solution? Leave no stone unturned in safeguarding company data.
If you want to be marked safe from these risks, you’ve got to have robust security measures in place that could stop unauthorized access, theft, and misuse in their tracks.
Ensure Strong Access Controls
These are the basic measures you’ve got to take care of. With user authentication and authorization managed properly, there’ll be no place for data breaches.
Password management is the first order of business. Organizations should enforce a minimum password length of at least 12 characters, and it has to be a unique mix of letters (both uppercase and lowercase), numbers, plus special characters. Periodic password changes have to be mandated as well.
Additionally, encouraging employees to use password managers can help them securely store and manage complex passwords.
Multi-factor authentication, or MFA, is a process wherein an account holder must verify their identity through more than one authentication factor. Time-based one-time passwords (TOTPs), push notifications, and biometrics are some of the choices. So, if an organization’s password gets compromised, its security is still intact with MFA.
Another great strategy is role-based access control (RBAC). What it does is provide users only the permissions necessary for them to get their respective jobs done.
Nothing more, nothing less. And all this without exposing sensitive information. Also, regular reviews are paramount to ensure roles and permissions are aligned at all times.
With strong access controls, organizations can effectively protect sensitive information and maintain business continuity. Now, if you think your in-house efforts need some boost in this area, you can hire professional cybersecurity services by Gravity or any similar experts near you. They can help ensure your digital assets are in safe hands 24/7.
Strengthen Network Security
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Want to protect your organization’s valuable data from menaces that can compromise your business operations? Network security has to be taken seriously. Here are your weapons:
- Firewalls are all about filtering incoming and outgoing network traffic. They can be configured to block viruses, malware, and unauthorized access attempts. Firewall rules have to be carefully defined, though, so organizations can create a secure perimeter around their network.
- Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) monitor network traffic for unauthorized access attempts, port scans, malicious code injections, and other suspicious activities. If an IDS detects something alarming, it can alert administrators to investigate and take appropriate action. Such systems can be deployed as standalone devices or integrated with firewalls and other security tools.
- Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide a secure tunnel for the remote user to connect to the corporate network. They encrypt data over them, and this allows organizations to adequately protect sensitive information from interception by unauthorized parties.
These tools will help you have a strong network security measure that protects your precious data from any possible threat. Updates, monitoring, and maintenance are crucial for these security measures to actually work.
Want to take things a little bit further? Data centers offered by Vaultas and similar providers can be a viable option. They’ve got solid IT ecosystem and formidable security measures. What this means is you’ll be more than sure your data won’t be compromised as it’s somewhere safe.
Don’t Skip Data Encryption
Next stop: data encryption. With this, organizations can protect sensitive data from unauthorized access, even if the data is compromised.
Encrypting data at rest involves applying cryptographic algorithms to data stored on hard drives, servers, and other storage devices. This ensures that the data is unintelligible to anyone who gains unauthorized access. Encryption can be implemented at the file level, database level, or disk level, depending on the specific requirements and sensitivity of the data.
Encrypting data in transit, on the one hand, involves protecting data while it’s being transmitted over networks, such as emails, online transactions, and remote access connections. This is typically achieved using encryption protocols that scramble data before it’s transmitted and decrypt it upon arrival at the intended recipient.
Common encryption protocols include HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) for web traffic and TLS (Transport Layer Security) for other network communications.
Merge these two approaches, and you can create a multi-layered approach to protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access. Still, regular key management and rotation are essential to ensure the ongoing security measures of encrypted data.
Implement Regular Updates and Patches
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Software vendors address vulnerabilities by frequently releasing updates and patches. These help reduce organizations’ exposure to various threats.
- Operating System Updates are particularly important, as they often address critical security vulnerabilities that could be used for illegal access to systems and data. Regular updates can also improve system performance and stability.
- Application Updates are equally crucial, as they may contain security and bug fixes, and even new features. Outdated applications are more likely to contain vulnerabilities that can be exploited by attackers.
- Security Software Updates are essential for protecting systems from malware, viruses, and other threats. Anti-virus and anti-malware software vendors regularly release updates to detect and remove new threats.
It’s important to have a process in place for regularly applying updates and patches to all systems within the organization. This should include testing the updates in a controlled environment before they’re deployed to production systems.
You should also consider automating the update process to ensure that systems are always up-to-date.
Conduct Employee Training
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Employees are important in safeguarding company data. Provide these folks with security awareness training and conducting phishing simulations, and you can empower them to identify and prevent security threats.
Security measures awareness training should cover the following areas:
- Common Threats: Employees should be aware of common threats, such as phishing, malware, and social engineering attacks.
- Best Practices: Employees should be taught best practices for protecting their devices and data, such as using strong passwords, avoiding suspicious links, and reporting suspicious activity.
- Importance of Data Security: Employees should understand the devastating aftermaths of data breaches, as well as the importance of protecting sensitive information.
Phishing simulations are an effective way of knowing how good employees are at identifying and reporting phishing attempts. These involve sending employees fake phishing emails that mimic real-world attacks. This is a great chance to identify problem areas that need to be addressed.
In addition to training and simulations, organizations need to have policies and procedures in place to ensure that employees are aware of their responsibilities for data security measures. For example, you may require employees to sign confidentiality agreements or implement policies for reporting suspicious activity. Another good idea is to have everyone, you and your employees, learn what is records management. This can help create a plan on how data is stored, what goes where, who has access to files, and so much more.
Have an Incident Response Plan
A comprehensive security strategy has to have an incident response plan. With a detailed system in place, coupled with regular testing, your organization can effectively respond to data breaches and minimize their impact.
Developing an IRP involves outlining the steps that will be taken in the event of a data breach. It should include:
- Containment: Procedures for isolating the affected systems and preventing further damage
- Investigation: Steps for investigating the cause of the breach and identifying the extent of the damage
- Notification: Procedures for notifying affected parties, such as customers, regulators, and law enforcement
- Recovery: Steps for restoring systems and data to a functional state
Regular testing is essential in all this. It ensures that the IRP is effective and that employees know their roles. Drills can simulate various types of breaches, such as phishing and ransomware attacks, as well as data theft. These can help identify weaknesses in the plan, allowing you to make necessary adjustments.
Implement Data Backup and Recovery
Your best weapon for protecting data from loss due to disasters, human error, or malicious attacks? Data backup and recovery.
Backups should be carried out as often as necessary. Information of highest importance? Should be backed up daily or even hourly. Those of lesser importance? Would suffice to be backed up weekly or monthly.
And the backups should be kept outside the premises so that they’re protected from natural disasters that might affect the storage facility on site.
The backup and recovery process has to be proven effective, of course. This involves the testing of restored data from the backups just to confirm that it has indeed been recovered. Such tests could also point out issues like errors in the backup or insufficient capacity in storage.
You’ve also got to lessen the storage requirements for backups. How to go about this? Data deduplication and compression would be great. Using cloud-based solutions can also be a huge help in offloading the burden of managing backups to a third-party provider.
Final Thoughts
We’re inhabiting a highly digitized world these days. If you want to survive, data protection ought to be your topmost priority. Good thing robust security measures can more than guarantee valuable assets are kept within the boundaries of legitimate and proper use.
Organizations, no matter the size, are more than capable of handling risks related to data breaches, achieving uninterrupted business operations, and protecting and maintaining their good reputation so long as data security measures are taken seriously.
But one must not forget that data security measures are processes that never end. You must continually assess and adapt to ever-evolving threats.
