5 best practices to minimize the risk of personal data breaches in companies

Many organizations today face the challenge of protecting confidential and sensitive information. Maintaining full control and effective monitoring is more difficult than ever.

Moving data to the cloud and allowing employees to work remotely means that data is no longer physically stored by the company. This makes it necessary to take steps to protect them from theft and tampering when they are processed and stored in multiple locations.

Organizations should follow best practices to ensure that confidential information is well protected. Ideal rules should apply to both distributed and centralized environments.

To avoid catastrophic consequences caused by cybercriminals and effectively protect sensitive data, take a look at these five security best practice tips.

1. Create a comprehensive security policy

Maintaining data security always starts with a consistent policy. Cybersecurity is such a complex topic that if there is no well-planned strategy, it is very easy to forget something. One small mistake is all it takes to give malicious parties access to sensitive information. Here are some of the most important things to consider when developing a security policy:

• a comprehensive risk management strategy – this includes identifying and assessing potential threats, determining their likelihood and potential impact, and implementing appropriate measures,
• establishing a security management structure - defining roles and responsibilities, developing policies and procedures and implementing controls to ensure effective administration of security threats,
• having well-designed incident response plans – technical plans or contact with customers and partners in an emergency situation are just as important as preventing threats.

2. Build employee safety awareness

It is extremely important to educate and raise awareness of employees about the risks and policies to ensure the security of sensitive information. They can become an unintentional weak link in a company's security, and lack of awareness can result in security breaches. Employee education should mainly be based on:

• explanation and explanation of threats – this encourages self-knowledge of common types of cyberattacks and vulnerabilities, which increases vigilance and guarantees better preparation to detect and respond to threats,
• demonstrating how to stay cyber safe at work and beyond – this is especially important for remote and hybrid workers. This includes advice on strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, secure communication and web browsing,
• creating a safety culture – it should be emphasized at every step that everyone is responsible for safety, both CEOs and lower-level employees.

3. Maintain strict access control

Before you can protect confidential data, you must first determine what it is, where it is located and who should have access to it. Sensitive information can come in many forms and types, so it's not an easy task. Appropriately selected tools and practices can be of great help here:

• using DLP software - it can track sensitive information downloaded from cloud systems to users' computers and automatically delete it after some time. The less sensitive data leaves well-protected storage systems, the better,
• tracking access to all sensitive information – data loss prevention software allows you not only to define it, but also to log all access attempts. Setting alerts for all suspicious activities such as out-of-hours inspections or repeated attempts to access sensitive information is key to avoiding threats.

4. Encrypt everything you can

With today's processor speeds, there's no excuse to avoid encryption. Encrypting information was resource-intensive and therefore avoided in the past. Today, however, data should be encoded wherever possible, especially for sensitive information. Here are some encryption tips:

• use two layers of encryption - this will not harm data or resources, and ensures that if the privacy of the transit technology is compromised as a result of an attack, the information will remain safe,
• use measures to prevent unnecessary access to unencrypted data if users only need temporary access - computer operating systems should be prevented from copying and pasting personal data elsewhere, as long as it does not interfere with work,
• enforce encryption whenever data is to leave the organization - no permission to copy unencrypted information to any external media is a basic security measure.

5. Cover all bases

Professional data loss prevention software will help protect most basic data, such as identification, encryption or network monitoring. However, there are areas that often do not get enough attention:

• security of web applications - most of the data in them is placed in interfaces that are vulnerable to security gaps,
• human - social engineering attacks, including phishing, are still the most effective way of obtaining confidential information by malicious entities,
• work profiles – more and more often employees use mobile phones or their own equipment at work; work profiles allow you to store information in a secure way.

CoSoSys Endpoint Protector provides comprehensive protection and prevents data loss for over 11 million users worldwide. The solution is characterized by easy and quick implementation and a very good price-quality ratio.

To learn more about CoSoSyS, please contact Damian Malinowski, who is responsible for this solution at Bakotech.