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In a poll of 1,000 enterprise professionals and software program builders, practically 45% say their firm has confronted an information breach inside the final 5 years. That is no shock, as knowledge breach studies from Nasdaq present that the variety of knowledge breaches grew by greater than 68% in 2021, and this quantity is certain to develop.
SEE: Mobile device security policy (TechRepublic Premium)
As the speed of knowledge breaches and cyberattacks will increase yearly, corporations are dropping hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in income and authorized charges. Actually, Capital One needed to pay $190 million as a settlement to clients whose private knowledge was stolen in an information breach.
The query now could be — how can organizations handle and safe their knowledge from unauthorized entry and cyberattacks? That is the place knowledge encryption comes into play. On this article, we are going to take a look at how data encryption as a safety measure is significant in managing knowledge entry and safety.
Why knowledge encryption is vital for managing knowledge entry and safety
Information is without doubt one of the key property of any group. Since attackers are always on the lookout for new methods to move by way of safety measures, companies should make a aware effort to guard their knowledge. Earlier than we see a few of the methods manufacturers can safe their knowledge, listed here are some key the explanation why knowledge encryption is essential for managing knowledge entry and safety.
Secures knowledge when there’s safety misconfiguration
Safety misconfiguration happens when safety settings are configured inaccurately or when safety controls are deployed with default usernames and passwords. Your system’s configuration should adjust to safety requirements equivalent to OSWAP Top 10 or CIS benchmarks. Utilizing the default usernames or password that comes with any software, web site, server or system will make them susceptible to assaults.
Safety misconfiguration is without doubt one of the most typical threats to knowledge safety. In response to a 2020 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, misconfigurations precipitated 10% of all knowledge breaches. Gartner additionally predicts that misconfigurations will trigger 99% of all firewall breaches by 2023.
Encrypting your knowledge will be certain that your knowledge is protected even when there are misconfigurations or knowledge breaches.
Third-party purposes can expose knowledge
Utilizing unauthorized apps, even those downloaded from respected marketplaces, can put your group’s knowledge in danger. Safety flaws in third-party apps can create backdoors that give hackers entry to delicate knowledge.
Hackers now additionally use third-party apps to unfold ransomware. Since it isn’t as widespread as phishing, any such assault has a excessive success price. Actually, a ransomware referred to as Ragnar Locker focused distant administration software program utilized by MSPs and encrypted their knowledge. The attackers then demanded $200,000 to 600,000 for decryption.
Utilizing knowledge encryption will be certain that third-party purposes should not have entry to your group’s delicate knowledge and knowledge. The apps will solely have entry to the data you permit.
Information encryption finest practices
As the speed of cyberattacks on organizations will increase yearly, corporations must take actionable steps when encrypting their knowledge. Listed below are some finest practices for organizations when utilizing knowledge encryption.
Construct a unified knowledge safety coverage
No matter your group’s measurement, you might be most certainly utilizing a number of infrastructures and software program platforms. As an illustration, you would possibly host some assets in your native servers whereas internet hosting others on cloud servers.
From a safety perspective, utilizing various kinds of environments and platforms will increase safety dangers equivalent to knowledge breaches, phishing, hacking and ransomware. The extra instruments that a corporation makes use of, the extra knowledge is generated. It’s very straightforward for the info to be misplaced or misused. For that reason, it’s vital to construct a unified data security policy.
A unified knowledge safety coverage is a safety technique that permits you to use, monitor, retailer and handle all your group’s knowledge. The safety coverage ought to embody all the info saved by your group no matter location, equivalent to cloud providers, native storage, servers and databases. It will be sure that each data-at-rest, data-in-use and data-in-transit are stored protected. As soon as such safety insurance policies are established, one of many key challenges is to implement them throughout completely different platforms.
Implement entry management
Entry management is a safety technique that enables organizations to control who has entry to firm knowledge or different assets. This technique of safety controls entry until bodily or digital authentication credentials are supplied. Examples of authentication credentials embody passwords, biometric scans, private identification numbers, safety tokens and biometric scans.
By implementing entry management, you’ll considerably cut back the chance of firm knowledge getting leaked. Entry management is much more vital while you work with cloud environments the place knowledge could be accessed from anyplace or in case your group makes use of a BYOD policy.
Use an identification and entry administration resolution
An IAM resolution permits organizations to maintain credentials protected and handle entry to knowledge. It additionally offers an environment friendly method for implementing a zero trust framework.
Zero belief is a framework for securing infrastructure and knowledge. The safety framework assumes that the group’s community is at all times in danger so it requires that each one customers — whether or not inside or exterior a corporation — be approved and authenticated earlier than they’re granted entry to knowledge and purposes.
Listed below are some issues to contemplate when selecting an IAM resolution:
- Multi-factor authentication: This helps shield knowledge even when a consumer loses their entry credentials.
- Third-party vendor administration: It will assist organizations be certain that third-party subcontractors don’t abuse their entry.
- Fast response to safety occasions: For instance, blocking suspicious accounts.
- Ease of use and user-friendliness.
- The IAM resolution should be appropriate with completely different community architectures and working programs.
Conclusion
Information breaches are very costly and might value organizations hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in misplaced income. Together with inside issues that happen after an information or safety breach, organizations additionally lose credibility within the eyes of consumers. In response to a research by Okta and YouGov, 39% of customers say they misplaced belief in an organization after they heard it had an information breach or misused knowledge. Eighty-eight % say they gained’t buy from a enterprise they don’t belief. To keep away from these results of a safety and knowledge breach, knowledge encryption is a should.
Information encryption will assist shield your corporation’s delicate knowledge and buyer data from malicious intent. Even when an unauthorized particular person or entity comes throughout your knowledge whereas in transit, they gained’t have the ability to learn it as a result of it is going to be encrypted.
Ben Herzberg is an skilled tech chief and guide creator with a background in endpoint safety, analytics, and software and knowledge safety. Ben crammed roles such because the CTO of Cynet, and director of risk analysis at Imperva. Ben is the chief scientist for Satori, the DataSecOps platform.
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