6 Ways to Avoid a Data Breach

Data breaches can cause all sorts of problems for businesses – from a loss of data to huge fines from regulators. Here are 6 ways to prevent them.

1. Training

A lot of organizations aren’t properly supporting their employees with the right kind of training needed. Only a mere 29 percent of staff got the cyber security training they need in 2019. This is an extremely low percentage given as many as 81 percent of upper management got it. 

The problem is, just about every employee in your business is going to handle or have access to sensitive data at some point. This means that you are only as strong as your weakest link. 

Thus, ensuring everyone has access to the right training is crucial to ensure that the information and data within your company are kept secure. 

While no one has a 100 percent perfect memory, doing training exercises and having staff go through these classes can do wonders for their knowledge.

2. Data Security Policies

A lot of people view different things like policies as something that you simply check off on your list. However, data security policies shouldn’t be treated like that at all. They are so much more.

The hope for many is that your employees don’t even have to use the policies they learn. You don’t want them to have to utilize their data security training because it means you’re vulnerable. However, you do want to ensure they do have the information if needed.

Having a comprehensive data security policy is one of the resources that your staff can use as a means of figuring out what to do next. It doesn’t matter if they’ve just received data access requests from a client or if they cannot remember what to do when they are bringing their work laptop home for the day. You want to have a policy that is enforced. This will lay out the rules and the procedures they need to follow when they are dealing with the issue at hand. 

This can be a good way to support your staff when they aren’t necessarily sure what they should be doing. It can also effectively minimize their risk of having to make decisions on their own and guess what should be done. Having a policy set in place means the fault lies on your organization as a whole if it fails.

2. Multi-Factor Authentication

Your staff likely knows the importance of using a strong password. It’s become essential in everyday life. However, a password isn’t good enough most of the time. Unfortunately, they can be brute-forced and breached. Because of this, multi-factor authentication (MFA/2FA) is needed. This is much more secure because it requires the user to have access to another verification method.

This is a security feature that will require the user to not only enter the password but to use another authentication method to prove they are supposed to have access. This means either a code sent to an email, an app, or even physical hardware.

3. Penetration Testing

This is a very important thing to do in your company. This type of testing is when your in-house IT team or a third party simulates an attack on your organization. This will help you figure out where your vulnerabilities lie so you can patch them up. 

These simulations will generally include attempting to get into your network and doing a mass search on your Internet to see if there are any vulnerabilities. They will also be using social engineering tactics to try to gain access to accounts or using phishing emails to try to get access from a member of your team.

By putting your security through these various real-life tests, you will be able to figure out where you are vulnerable so you can fix them.

4. Risk-Based Approach

One of the main keys to your cyber security is your risk. By understanding where your risk is, you’ll have a much better chance of being able to avoid it. You need to conduct a good risk assessment of your company to ensure that you find areas where your organization needs to make improvements and where you may need to tighten up security.

5. Information Security Management Systems

This is another thing that can help you figure out the formal procedure and processes you should be using within your company. With this, you can figure out where there are gaps and identify whether or not there are any risks that compromise the security of your data and the company as a whole.

6. Remain Vigilant

You will find that cybercriminals don’t remain stagnant. Rather, they are looking for ways to penetrate companies and compromise them. They are always improving their methods and tweaking things to improve their success rate. They will be looking for new ways to exploit vulnerabilities. Because of this, you need to constantly keep your staff trained on the latest and greatest in cyber security. One of the best ways to do this is by doing thorough audits of your data security to ensure you maintain an advantage over them.

Siem tools can be a good way to aid your security needs but they do have limitations. This eBook on SIEM tools is a good way to learn more and choose the right option for your company.