Protect an Enterprise's Data Against these 4 Data Breach Instances with Information Security Training

Organizations of all sizes have specific sets of mission-critical, sensitive data that they need to have ready access to. This corporate data is crucial to business operations and without access, continuing with the business can be a tough call.

But as important as it is to keep corporate data accessible, protecting it from illicit access is crucial too. Due to its nature, corporate data is the most sought-after targets for hackers and cybercriminals. They use it as a mark to enter the targets' networks or systems. It is how cybercriminals target the endpoints of the business.

Statistics show how more than 50% of the enterprises agree how security breach have blown them out. At the same time, there's 20% increase in the IT awareness - especially for decision-making purpose - to set strong security measures to protect the business from prevailing security breaches.  

The key is to set the right balance between snooping on private data and protecting corporate data - which is the intellectual property of the business. First and foremost, it is very important to draw a clear line between employees that can and cannot access high-risk data. While there are no frameworks or standards to help you with that decision, the information security team should use their skills to set up their own regulatory frameworks depending on its risks and business goals.

Here are a few important considerations that could help with making that decision.

• Identify corporate or high-risk data of your organization.
• Define data ownership for each category of the high risk-data identified. It is best to stick to the top management, who can further review the list of privileged users in their specific departments.
• Locate directories and database tables with corporate data.
• Go through user accounts who are given the access rights to the sensitive data. You can review or carry out a detailed audit to reduce the list to a more secure and reduced number.
• Automate the daily reports for database directories and tables for high-risk data to be sent to the data owner regularly. This will encourage individual assessing, and the reports can be monitored more closely.
• Don't forget to make changes post the auditing and implement the framework right away. Also, make sure the entire organization is aware of the new changes.

How to Protect Corporate Data Against Data Breach Instances

Data breach is bad news for the business of any size or industry. The costs related to a data breach can be massive as operations are disrupted, reputation is at stake, data assets are abused, and customer trust is lost.

Indeed, information security training can play a major role in improving the current network security systems. When the team is provided data security training, it enables the staff to take all the important measures to protect their sensitive data.

Following are the four ways information security can help protect corporate data.

Implement Latest Security Patches

A security system that worked for you a decade ago may not be as effective today. Cybercriminals are becoming smart, and so are their techniques. They are using high-tech networking systems for data theft, and that means organizations must implement the latest security patches and keep the systems up-to-date for maximum security.

A report released by CNN Money revealed that more than 317 million new pieces of malware were released in the same year when new hacking tools were discovered. This means that an organization is susceptible to more than 100 million malware attacks if it fails to apply the latest security patches through reliable data protection software.

Also, if your team isn't up-to-date either, it may find it very difficult to keep up with the latest security patches. Thus, you need to start with the right information security training to ensure they are able to handle and use complicated computer software that perfectly works for your specific business system and the type of corporate data you hold.

Limit The Access

While protecting your business from external resources is important, it is equally imperative to consider protection against internal attacks too. These attacks could result from accidents, natural disasters, intentional employee malfeasance, or a compromised user account. And despite the reason, the results can be quite damaging.

Business must take important measures to restrict employee access without compromising on their productivity or ability to carry out their daily duties.

Keep corporate data to very limited access. Allow employees to access the apps and databases they need for their job role.

Unused IT Assets

Old IT assets such as servers and computers that are no longer used should be taken down offline. These systems may be used by hackers as online doors to penetrate the system.

Removing unused devices from within the network can reduce the vulnerability of the organization. And before the devices are turned offline, it is important to wipe out all the important data as well as any information related to the security standards.

Apply Encryption to Corporate Data

Applying encryption to data-in-use and data-at-rest can provide the maximum protection it needs from hackers. Encryption is a great way to scramble data so that it cannot be accessed without inputting the right key. This naturally reduces the risk of illicit access.

However, with hackers becoming more aware and sophisticated in their approach, it can be difficult to keep them from encrypted data completely. But it can surely run them down and buy more time to the IT professionals to detect the breach and respond it right away.

Preserving the integrity and confidentiality of corporate data has never been more important. In addition to building strong walls to prevent the external threat, the organization must also keep an eye on the employees' footprints.

The trained team will be more capable of implementing a secure, workable solution that stays up-to-date with the access controls and process maintenance.