Desjardins, Capital One or, more recently, Revenu Québec all have one thing in common: these companies have been victims of massive leaks of personal data. Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable person. An email address, an IP address, a photo or a voice recording are therefore personal data. They are extremely valuable elements for companies because their exploitation offers them new opportunities (better targeting, proposal of more coherent services and products…).
In the digitaled era, there are more and more malicious acts to recover data. But the fault is not only on the hackers. The behaviour of companies regarding securing access plays an important role in data security. My Technician provides you with some good practices to avoid risks.
Countering internal data leaks
Very often, threats come from within the company. Employees sometimes unintentionally engage in risky behaviour: losing or forgetting to change passwords, unsecured connections, lending USB key, disclosing confidential documents, etc. To protect yourself from internal data leaks, make sure you have sensitized and trained your teams and IT department on potential risks.
On the other hand, the emergence of teleworking multiplies the number of end access points and, consequently, the potential risks. If your desktops are well secured, what about your employees’ cell phones and tablets? Remember to equip all your IT equipment with anti-virus systems and make sure you update them regularly.
It is also very important to allow access to the company’s information systems only through VPN access, an encrypted and secured connection.
Protecting against external threats
By adopting a solution to protect yourself from malware, you will already avoid many data theft attempts.
If everyone can read the information on an unencrypted USB key, this is almost impossible when the data is encrypted. To prevent malicious people from accessing your data, it is useful to use an encryption system. Encryption encodes the data in a form that is impossible to decrypt without the proper key. So, even if he is in possession of your data, the hacker will not be able to use it.
In addition, to secure your data, remember to save them regularly. To do this, there are several solutions available to you, from external hard drives to online backup. Cloud services are generally more secure than a local backup system. Discover in this article why a Cloud is a must for your business.
Remember that data loss directly affects your company’s performance. In addition, a customer’s trust relationship with your company also depends on your ability to properly protect its digital data. It is therefore essential to implement strategies to limit internal data leaks and intrusions into your system.
What if, despite the recommendations, it happens to you?
No one is immune to a data leakage, and even if you follow our advice to the letter, you can be a victim. Once the leak is detected, you must react quickly. See you next month on the blog to find out how!