Protecting Companies From Data Breaches
In today’s time, where the thugs of cyberspace / virtual world pose more threat than the thugs of real-life and the importance of data has risen significantly, safeguarding the data from the hands of those cyberspace thugs has assumed prime importance. Data breaches have risen as a severe threat to the new, technologically developing ecosystem that needs serious attention.
While there are various practices that need to be taken into consideration to safeguard the organization from cybersecurity attacks and data breaches. Here are a few tips to help with this issue that are usually frowned upon by organizations.
Tips To Help Safeguard Your Organisation From Data Breaches
1. Invest in cybersecurity Infrastructure: The very first and foremost step to help safeguard against cybersecurity threats is to invest appropriately in your organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure. With the help of sufficient and appropriate investment and by including cybersecurity as a part of the annual budgets for tailored cybersecurity technology and protocols, companies do not have to play ‘I Spy’ with cyberbullies anymore. Apt cybersecurity budgets, and investment in the latest technologies will not only instil a sense of security but also help firms go unnoticed on the radars of data thieves.
2. Create a cyber trained culture in the workplace / Train the staff: The most common method for cybercriminals to steal the previous date from the organization is through the activities of the employees. Employees that are untrained might indulge in unscrupulous activities and get into the vicious web of cyberbullies. Usually, the cybercriminals send fraudulent emails impersonating a colleague, demanding the employees to either click on a fraud link to gain access to their data or ask for personal/organizational details over the mail itself like their passwords, etc. To the untrained eye, these links might seem real and they might easily fall into their traps. Therefore, it is crucial for organizations to regularly organize employee awareness/ training campaigns to inform the employees about such activities and help them prevent such miss happenings.
3. Protect don’t Regret; Safeguard Your Hardware: The most ignored practice that has led to various cybersecurity threats is not protecting your hardware. It is imperative for organizations to safeguard their hardware simultaneously with the much-sought emphasis on acquiring the latest and most sophisticated cybersecurity software. It is overlooked at large but a lot of data theft cases are due to the loss or theft of devices and the precious information inside of those devices. Starting with the basics and beginning the cyberattack prevention strategy with physically attaching computers and other workplace devices will be a sure shot success. Moreover, installing ‘find my device’ software will also prevent and lower the risk of theft and help in the location and restoration of devices if lost/stolen.
4. Install a Firewall & Secure your WIFI: With the rising types of sophisticated cyberattacks and new types surfacing every day, comes the rising demand to incorporate Firewall security measures, as they are one of the most basic cyber protection tools used by organizations. Firewalls are effective in filtering the received traffic to prevent malicious files and folders from being downloaded and save sensitive data by blocking attackers from accessing that sensitive data. Moreover, in this technically developing era, everyone has a WIFI enabled device. This exposes the whole organizational network of devices to risks as any device can get infected due to some other infected device on the network. Hence, securing your WIFI is as important as installing a Firewall.
5. Adopt a Zero trust Approach: A Zero trust approach is a cybersecurity model that requires identity verification of every person and device accessing or trying to access a private network, irrespective of their proximity to the network perimeter. It is a holistic approach towards the security of a network that incorporates multi-level verification with the help of several different principles and technologies. A zero-trust network works on the philosophy, assuming that there are attackers and invaders both inside and outside of the network. Hence, no users or devices are automatically trusted making this approach infallible.
Conclusion:
Prevention is better than cure. It is less expensive to streamline our efforts in order to prevent cyber-attacks rather than to repair the damage dealt from those cyber-attacks. Therefore, by religiously following the aforementioned tips, organizations can easily safeguard against cyberattacks and data breaches.
The author is Sandeep Kumar Panda, Co-Founder & CEO of Instasafe
