When was the last time you came across a data breach news? 2018 has been very well known for one of the largest data breach disasters that scaled up to millions of users losing their personally identifiable information. This impacted big players such as Facebook, Quora, Panera Bread, AccuDoc, British Airways, Marriott, Google, and many more. Not only this, small businesses were not far behind in the list.
More so, in a recent report, Instagram has filed for a data breach that includes public information from its accounts including the number of followers, likes, and shares of a user along with email addresses and phone numbers. This is just the 2nd quarter of 2019, and we already have a list of numbers to share! Sadly, the problem of data leaks is not getting any better and is taking a toll on businesses with their credibility and trustworthiness on the line.
What causes a data breach?
Amongst the number of reasons associated with a data breach – hacking is considered to be the most common form of attack, which is a possibility if there are any loopholes in the security system and access controls of the software. Other causes include mishandling and illegal selling to 3rd parties. All this can leave any information on the business network unsafe.
How can data breaches be prevented?
Preventing a data breach is vital to every business – large or small – come what may. Is your business prepared to mitigate a data loss even before the situation arises? Here’s how you can avoid being a victim to data breaches this year:
Incorporate Cybersecurity Measures
To deal with the problem of data vulnerabilities, invest in cybersecurity, firewalls, anti-virus, anti-spyware software across the network. Not only at the consumer level, but also within the organization. Along with this, make sure you keep a regular tap on your IT solutions provider for any updates around the cybersecurity software employed at your business.
Why is cybersecurity important for your business?
Cybersecurity protects your data and also saves your employees and consumers from ransomware or adware attacks that can put confidential information at risk. Another upside to this measure is that it helps increase network uptimes, making the network robust and resistant to malicious attacks.
Avoid Collecting Unnecessary Data
Understand the importance and utility of the data you have already. If there is data that is redundant and is not used whatsoever, it is best to discard it and not collect it in the first place in the future. This will not only save you a lot of data storage but also optimizes your network bandwidth every time you retrieve information required for any operation.
Conduct Regular Employee Training
To ensure that the confidential information remains confidential and is not subject to any leakage, you should organize employee training around network security. In addition to this, conduct regular employee background checks, behavioral monitoring and limit access to sensitive data by attaching user roles and management controls to the information.
Perform Data Security Audits
If you don’t know whether you are vulnerable to a data breach, then its best to deploy regular vulnerability assessments and tests to minimize the risk associated with one. Conform to industry security standards and apply organizational best practices to be well prepared for any kind of network intrusions. Especially when it comes to mission-critical systems, you must apply intrusion detection mechanisms to keep such activities at bay.
Employ Cloud Backup Solutions
Loss of data backups is one of the major reasons why businesses have to suffer from the problem of loss of confidential proprietary and consumer data. Instead of becoming a victim to a cyber attack and theft due to distributed data backups or in-house device backups, consider backing data to a cloud. Cloud backups come with an additional security layer that not only allows a one-stop data syncing and access to your company but is also cost-effective and safer than local file backups. You can choose from a plethora of cloud service models like private, public, community or hybrid – each owing to safety and flexibility as per the configuration.
Safeguard and Encrypt Data
Any kind of electronic data transmission within the organization or to any third party should be encrypted to reduce the risk of data loss or modification during the process. In fact, you should take appropriate measures to make all data storage and transmission mandatory for encryption within your business.
Data is more vulnerable than ever. The risk of a potential loss of privacy and identity thefts attributed to this sensitivity of data is not only costly for consumers but also businesses, for it tarnishes their reputation as well as costs them a fortune financially to rectify and make amends for the breach to ensure security in the future. Not only this, most companies rarely discover a data breach which is why when they do, the impact amplifies. These data security measures will help you build and implement a safe data infrastructure and save your business from financial and reputational risks.
At Tech Support Toronto, we offer powerful data security solutions and IT measures to prepare you for data breach incidents in advance. Contact us for more information.
