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What is a Data Breach?
A data breach can be defined as a cybersecurity breach in the Data Security And Privacy of your company network that results in the exposure of highly sensitive, confidential business or client data. This could even include intellectual property and personally identifiable information of your customers. Data breaches can happen to anyone from individuals to large multinational corporations and even government departments including federal departments. Data breaches generally happen due to vulnerabilities in the technical infrastructure or user behavior that compromises the security and integrity of valuable data and sensitive information. Persistent errors or undesirable traits in user behavior can also give rise to vulnerabilities in the infrastructure that can later be exploited by hackers.
With the widespread implementation of emerging technologies such as IoT and 5G, users at both the individual and enterprise levels are exposed to more risks than ever. The problem is further compounded by the fact that most IT devices come with little to no security capabilities that can create real problems down the line, especially when they get implemented as part of a vast network of IoT devices. In order to combat data breaches effectively, companies need to work at implementing comprehensive security strategies at the endpoint, user, and enterprise levels. For the most effective Data Security Management and Data Security Solutions for local businesses, please contact Cybersecurity Services in Boston + Rhode Island.
7 Best Practices to Prevent Data Breaches
Educate your employees
Security awareness and training are your best bet against data breaches from happening in the first place. You need to continuously educate your employees and keep them updated on both the latest threats as well as the latest defensive measures that they can use in order to ward off privacy risks and threats to the company.
Create and update procedures
One of the best ways to ensure consistency in data security at your organization is to create security procedures that establish the minimum standards of data security that must be met. With supply chain attacks on the rise, companies should also think about implementing data security standards for all third-party service providers and vendors as well. Regular enforcement of such data security practices also helps to foster a culture of security at your organization and reminds employees to also take data security very seriously. It is also a good idea to implement identity and access management (IAM) solutions in your infrastructure so you can make use of rules and permissions when it comes to accessing privileged information. IAM solutions ensure that employees always have access to the data that they need in order to fulfill their job roles, but also do not have access to other sensitive and valuable information in the organization that is not relevant to their specific roles. These solutions generally enable organizations to control permissions at a granular level and even enable access in one-off scenarios.
Remote monitoring
In order to stay ahead of potential security and privacy threats, companies must invest in round-the-clock remote monitoring of their network. If this is difficult to manage in-house, companies can engage the services of reputed managed services providers that can enable not just remote monitoring, but also predictive maintenance and issue resolution in your network.
Data backup and recovery
Data backups can literally save businesses from going under, especially in situations where a massive breach of privacy results in the corruption or deletion of critical information and data. The best way to ensure regular data backups at your organization is to have an automated remote backup system in place and ensure that you have backups available to you on-site, offsite, and in the cloud. You should also periodically test your backups in order to ensure a high degree of availability, to check that they are updated to an acceptable point of restoration and redundancy. You can refer to some of the most effective Data Security Services and Data Security Systems at Backup and Disaster Recovery Services in Boston + Rhode Island.
Keep only what you need
With the rise of IoT, big data, AI, and machine learning in enterprise infrastructure, companies are dealing with more massive volumes of data than ever before. This is why it’s necessary for companies to prioritize data according to set order of importance, minimize the number of backup sites in use, secure those sites and monitor them continuously.
Destroy before disposal
This is a step that many companies tend to ignore or be careless about. Companies need to ensure that before they dispose of anything that contains confidential information, they must ensure its proper destruction and recycling. Even for something as ordinary as printouts of sensitive documents, companies must put a system in place where they shred paper files. For hardware devices, this means wiping data off permanently and even reformatting the device.
Safeguard physical data
Pursuant to the above, companies must also ensure the physical security of their data and assets. This means having an effective surveillance system in place, using padlocks or electronic (and even biometric) locking systems for assets containing sensitive information such as servers. You should also engage the services of alert physical security personnel, apart from surveillance systems, in order to stay ahead of risks that machines may not be able to identify or understand. To ensure your business has access to the best Data Security Compliance and Data Breach Monitoring, please refer to IT Support Boston or IT Support in Rhode Island.
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