Data loss can occur when you or the company lose crucial data for various reasons. For example, data can be corrupted, deleted, or destroyed intentionally or due to accidents. It can also happen in physical stores. Therefore, data loss prevention is vital in protecting sensitive data and ensuring the company continues running while preventing unauthorized personnel from accessing sensitive data.
Implementing data loss prevention strategies doesn’t have to be challenging. The following article will explore simple tips to help you prevent data loss.
What is Data Loss Prevention?
Data loss prevention is all the strategies and tools applied to detect and protect against possible breaches or damage. Sensitive data in use, in motion, and at rest should be protected from damage or landing in the hands of unauthorized persons. Doing a thorough DLP(Data Loss Prevention) Assessment can help you identify any possible breach before it occurs and quickly take the necessary actions.
Here are seven ways organizations can ensure data confidentiality and accessibility only to authorized users.
1. Assess Third-Party Risk
Most vendors are not keen on cybersecurity issues. However, you must be careful and keep assessing the security posture of your vendors. Such examination will help ensure that your vendors are at any risk of experiencing data breaching.
Evaluating your vendor is a primary way to keep your third party in line with the regulatory standards. That said, keeping up with the demand can be difficult if you have several vendors. In such cases, you can entrust third-party risk evaluation to the cyber-research analyst’s team to help you evaluate and monitor any possible risk.
2. Manage Network Access
Monitoring and managing network traffic allows you to identify any suspicious activity quickly. Cyber attacks usually happen in a progressive and continuous process. Most cybercriminals tend only to be interested in certain defenses they can use to navigate the attack.
However, data loss prevention tools allow you to identify and monitor any security weaknesses and prevent possible reconnaissance campaigns by cyber-criminals. Moreover, you can revise your information security policy to limit the accessibility of sensitive data.
3. Identify All Sensitive Data
Sensitive data includes all information that must be protected at all costs against damage and unauthorized individual access. They mostly contain company or individual privacy or security data. One vital role of data loss prevention is to ensure that sensitive data are not exposed or accessed by unauthorized third parties.
To effectively protect your data, you need to identify all the sensitive data that needs to be secured. Once identified, you can group these data according to strict security policies. For instance, you can group your sensitive data into financial, protective health information, and other vital data forms. Accurate data identification and classification can easily tailor effective ways to protect your data from any possible loss or breach.
4. Secure All Endpoints
An endpoint includes all the remote access that relays any information with the organization’s network. For example, the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobile devices, desktops, and computers. Since 2020, most organizations have adopted a remote working model; endpoint security is crucial.
Cloud-based endpoint security is one of the standard methods most organizations have employed. You can train your employees on the best tricks to identify any cyber-attacks, such as email phishing.
5. Use Data Loss Prevention (DPL) Software
Data loss prevention software helps to ensure sensitive data is not exposed to an unauthorized user, misused, or lost through combining distinctive processes and high technology levels. You can get assistance from software providers to help you streamline your DPL strategies by automating the main components of the software.
Some significant components of data loss prevention software include:
- data identification
- securing data in motion
- securing endpoints
- securing data at rest and in use
- data leak detection.
With such software, you can quickly identify, monitor, and secure your data. Additionally, they can scan any possible exposure of your data and recommend the necessary actions.
6. Encrypt All Data
Encrypting your data makes it hard for cybercriminals to exploit or access your data. Data can be encrypted in two main ways: public-key encryption and symmetric-key encryption. However, data encryption should be used simultaneously with other security methods, as cyber attackers can decrypt your sensitive data without the decryption key.
It would help if you kept the decryption key secure with limited accessibility.
7. Evaluate All Permissions
Sensitive and confidential data should have limited accessibility. Hence, it’s critical to regularly revise your data permission policies to ensure they are not accessed by individuals who do not need them.
You can categorize your data into various levels. This will help you manage the accessibility of different data. Moreover, regulating your data accessibility makes identifying any suspicious interference or access to your data more accessible.
Bottom Line
Sensitive data require a high level of security against any breach. Taking the necessary actions and adopting crucial strategies can help protect your data against loss, damage, or breach. Besides, you can educate your staff members on the basic security measures that will help protect the company’s data and keep cyber attacks away.
Furthermore, limiting the accessibility of your sensitive data to only trusted staff members can help improve data security.
