Tips for Data Leakage and Breach Prevention | FileCloud
June 29, 2020
In today’s digitized global economy, data break or data leaks can result in leaked sensitive information, insights about the company’s growth patterns, differential competitiveness against their competitors and much more. With the increasing volume of data, it is necessitated, that businesses look for alternatives that not only help them in providing solutions to their storage […]
In today’s digitized global economy, data break or data leaks can result in leaked sensitive information, insights about the company's growth patterns, differential competitiveness against their competitors and much more.
With the increasing volume of data, it is necessitated, that businesses look for alternatives that not only help them in providing solutions to their storage problems but also help them in offering security against data breaches and ransomware attacks. In this article we will discuss about data breach and tips for preventing data breach.
According to a data breach research conducted by Verizon, "43% of breach victims are usually small, growing businesses". Also, the report highlighted, “Healthcare sector constituted 15% breaches, Financial industry constituted 10% breaches”. IBM informs that the average time to identify a breach in 2019 was 209 days which implies that businesses need to look at increasing the security infrastructure exponentially, since these breaches can lurk around for so long that by the time they have been identified, huge losses would have been incurred already by the businesses.
The mentioned tips for preventing data breach and other security measures provided by DLP tools can ensure a secure enterprise environment which stops any data leaks and data breaches from happening automatically or manually.
What is a Data Breach?
A data breach, also commonly known as data leakage is the release of sensitive and confidential data with the intent of causing huge losses to the business. Data breaches are not necessarily the result of hacker attack but could also be an insider job, therefore businesses should always take precautions to protect data from falling into the wrong hands.
Businesses receive and store huge terabytes of sensitive data such as client’s banking details, employee's social security number, or project details, etc and data leakage would mean a complete or partial loss of data based on the mode in which data breach occurs.
Implementing new technological security practices and processes ensures that data leakages to be reduced to bare minimum and at the same time preventing data loss using Data Loss Prevention (DLP).
Types of Information leaked during data leakage:
Different groups or types of information which can be leaked
Financial and Banking Data: consisting of credit card numbers, bank details, and financial statements, etc
Personal Health Information (PHI): consisting of information related to past, present or future physical or mental health condition of individual
Personal Identifiable Information (PII): consisting of information related to identification, location, and contact details of an individual
Intellectual property Data: consisting of patents, client's list, trade secrets, contact details, etc.
Sensitive Information: Consisting of meeting recordings, protocols, agreements, and classified documents.
Causes of Information Leakage:
Insider Threats: Insider threats included employees who have access to sensitive data and can turn back on the business in lieu of financial gain etc.
Payment Fraud: Credit card breaches result in payment frauds by creating illegal transactions. In this, Hackers set up fake online shopping stores offering a profitable deal, and then once a user inputs his/her card details, the information is stolen.
Loss/Theft: Sensitive information is at stack when mobile phones, laptop computers, or hard drive gets stolen. This physical act of losing the devices can result in huge losses to the business
Unintended Disclosure: The act of saving data in the non-secure location can mistakenly expose data on the internet. The worker hasn't thought completely about the repercussions and thereby unintentional exposed data to the hackers.
Tips for Data Leakage Protection:
A data breach in the business's storage system occurs silently and lurks in the background without the knowledge. Data is stolen gradually over several days and when the breach is identified already complete loss of data has occurred.
Several experts are of the opinion that data leakages are not completely preventable and therefore safeguard practices such as detection, containment and remediation should be thoroughly followed.
Some of the best practices that can help businesses prevent data breaches are:
Investing in the right security infrastructure: Investing in the latest security infrastructure can make the system more secure and less prone to data breaches.
Vulnerability assessments: Systematic and regular review to fill any security gap that is identified. This ensures that the vulnerabilities can be identified and mitigation steps can be taken for the same.
Simulated Penetration testing: Simulated testing to check for exploitable vulnerabilities in the system. This technique identifies the loopholes and helps in taking corrective measures to prevent any authorized access.
Staff Training: Staff training in a matter of security procedures and processes can help businesses by reducing the risk of unintentional data leakages. This in turn can increase the awareness of the staff in matters of security and help them in identifying the potential threats.
Policy for equipment use: Policy can be undertaken on the equipment to be used in the office premises. Questions such as whether the staff members should use their own devices or the devices provided by the business for sharing information are answered through this policy.
Compliance with data regulation: Major compliances ensure that all the service providers can work towards making their infrastructure secure by following the latest protocols
Data Breach Response Plan: The response plan ensures that all the steps will be predefined in case of a data breach. This ensures that the teams can calmly function and can help by further preventing any data losses.
Regular audits and assessment: Regular check-up audits can result in identifying any of the loopholes that may exist in the system and help in providing feedback on the working of the system.
Data Backups: Regular data backs needs to be maintained so that data copies are available in case data loss has been incurred.
Learn How FileCloud’s DLP can help you in preventing data breaches?
FileCloud enterprise storage and sharing solution (EFSS) not only provides you with the space for storing your data but also provides a workspace where you can collaborate with your team. Whether your preferred hosting option is an on-premise storage, cloud storage or a hybrid storage setup, FileCloud provides you all the necessary tools to prevent data loss and data breaches.
To make your stored files secure, FileCloud employs security protocols like end-point backup, 2 factor authentication, anti-virus scanning and ransomware protection along with more techniques. While your files are protected on the servers, many data breaches happen due to external sharing, hacks, social hacking and malware.
When there are so many invisible threats to sensitive data, you need a smart tool to employ rules which classify confidential and business critical data, identify violations of policies defined internally, prevent the data leaks from happening across all bases.
FileCloud’s approach to DLP relies on multiple layers of security, including:
User Management- monitors data access activities of the authorized personnel to identify any inappropriate activity taking place
Encryption and Data masking- Encrypts sensitive data rendering it useless for the hackers to extract information
Data loss prevention- monitors and inspects data at rest, in motion, and while it is stored on the server.
Behavior Analytics- uses the latest machine learning to detect patterns and identify potentially malicious activities
E-discovery and data classification- keep track of the information to comply with the data compliance. Data is classified to make searching files and data easy.
Audit trails- Keep track of all the activities currently undergoing in the cloud system and keeps track of users
Alerts: Uses Artificial Intelligence for keeping track and notifying the admin in case of data breaches.