Any enterprise in business today stores some sort of data digitally, if not all of it. This can be client financial information, credit card numbers, staffing files, health records, and much more. While digital technology has allowed us to do amazing things, it also comes with some risk. If you have data stored digitally within your enterprise, then it could suffer from a data breach. These breaches can come from cyber attack targeting an internal or third party vulnerability, as well as good old-fashioned human error.
The problem with a data breach is more than just the lost data. Your company could suffer serious consequences. You could have a massive drop in reputation, leading to fewer clients wanting to buy your products or services. You may face legal consequences, or lawsuits from clients and staff as well. Even if none of those things happen, you will still have to deal with the loss of information that can help with marketing and service your clients. You should be doing everything you can to avoid this. However, in an enterprise business, it can be hard to keep track of everything. Here are some tips to stop a data breach from destroying your company.
Provide Training
There are many threats out there that you have to worry about. Every staff member needs to be committed to fighting them off. However, if they don’t even know the nature of these threats, it makes it more difficult. You should be providing ongoing training to everyone in your enterprise to keep them up to date and to make data security second nature. The more they work on it and learn, the tighter your security and processes will be. Training should focus on password management, data disposal, virus prevention, and much more.
Password Security
One of the top ways that criminals access data is by guessing or accessing a user’s data. They can do this in several ways, such as social engineering, phishing emails, and other tactics. You need to make sure that your team uses passwords that are stronger than what they might use for their personal emails or devices.
Passwords should not be words that are related to a user’s personal life. The favorite dog, the street they grew up on, and their mother’s maiden name should all be avoided. Ideally, they will use either a random code from a code generator, or it will be a phrase rather than a word. Passwords should have a mix of capital letters, numbers, and special characters.
Compliance With Regulations
Depending on your industry, there may be certain laws and regulations to which you must comply when it comes to data security. This is to protect those who might have vulnerable data, and the organizations that are storing it. As the world gets more digital, there are more and more of these regulations all the time. With a large enterprise, it can be very difficult to keep track of all of your users to make sure they are being compliant. You can use an IAM compliance report to help with this. It will track everyone in your organization that is involved with data security and audit their activity while providing reports on regulation compliance.
Software Updates
How many times have you gotten an alert on one of your devices and ignored it? Maybe you were in the middle of another task, or maybe you liked the way your device was working and didn’t want to change it. However, those updates often contain important security patches. Hackers and criminals often change their tactics, and software providers and operating system developers do their best to keep up. If you do not accept these updates, your team could be leaving your data vulnerable.
Extra Authorization
Sometimes a password isn’t enough. You can, however, implement additional authorization to make sure your network is better protected. Along with a password, users can have a code sent to their phones. They then would have to enter that code to access whatever platform they are using. This is called two-factor authorization. There are also ways to use biometric data for access. This can include fingerprints and facial recognition. With both of these methods, a hacker would need not only the password, but also access to a phone or to a body part of the actual user.
Data security has never been more important. A data breach can get your company in serious trouble. As an enterprise, keeping track of all of your data and your users can seem close to impossible. However, there are ways to make sure that you remain in compliance and keep data from getting into the wrong hands. With these tips, you can ensure that your clients, team, and patients are on the right path, and that your company is protected from any of the negative consequences that can come from an attack.
