The business world is changing quickly. It’s more competitive than ever before, and data security continues to be a major concern for businesses of all sizes. First off, it’s important to know that there is no such thing as “overall” protection against cyber threats. If you want your organization to be secure in any way possible, you need to make sure that your business has multiple layers of defence on its network infrastructure at the very least.
Secondly, when considering new software or hardware upgrades for your company’s systems, always make sure they have built-in security features. By doing this, you are lowering the chances of hackers being able to get into your system – even if they do manage to bypass firewalls or intrusion detection systems (IDS). Finally, make sure that everyone on your team is aware of how important data security actually is for business operations.
Insider Threats
Insider threats are the biggest security concerns for organizations. It is far more likely that an employee will abuse their access to sensitive data than a hacker, so companies need to take this risk seriously. Employees may steal intellectual property or sell company information on behalf of competitors – even give it away if they’re particularly disgruntled with how you do business.
According to STL Tech, employees have been known to do some pretty nefarious things in the name of making a buck, from cybercrime and corporate espionage to leaking company details on social media for quick cash.
Security Threats
Data network leaks and loss of confidentiality due to external attackers such as cybercriminals, espionage agents. Loss or delay in the transmission of data between two computers that results from a flaw or vulnerability in either computer’s security system. This includes insufficient authentication systems to ensure only authorized users can access specific information, flaws within transport layer security (TLS), and the exploitation of software vulnerabilities.
Data tampering or revision resulting from unauthorized modification of data in transit between two computers on a network without detection by either the sender or receiver, also known as “snooping.” This can result when an attacker tampers with routing information for email messages, modifies Web pages, tampers with a data stream between two computers, or modifies the files transferred in an FTP session.
Physical Security and Data Storage
Remember, this information does not need to be stored on computers or servers that are connected to the Internet; they can sit in a vault somewhere for years without issue as long as nobody knows where you keep them. When it comes to physical security, you need to consider the following:
- Who can get into your office? You really should not allow anyone in unless someone is there. If they are allowed in when only one person occupies the building, then that means they have access to everything inside — including all of the company data and anything else stored there (including paper files
- How are you encrypting your devices? Is everything stored on them encrypted end to end before it leaves the premises? If not, then that means if someone gets hold of a device, they can easily see all data stored there. This is especially important for laptops and any other mobile computing equipment.
- How are you protecting your devices from viruses? If someone gets hold of a device, can they load up some malicious software on there without anyone noticing? Can remote access be enabled without anybody knowing about it? All these things need to be considered as a potential risk.
- How are you protecting your devices from physical damage? If someone trips over a wire and the device goes flying across the office, hard drive heads will scratch it up or break off of there pretty quickly if not protected by something like a laptop protector cover.
Improper security can lead to identity theft, financial loss, and high costs of remediation. Challenges in business data security are real and should be dealt with promptly. Achieving proper data security in business is not an easy task. More than that, it takes a lot of time to establish and maintain systems for this purpose.
