In this new age of technology, more boundaries are being pushed all around the world. Unfortunately, this goes both ways as more people are looking for vulnerabilities in technologically systems and are using it to their own advantages. Security systems set in place by organisations to protect their information can be taken apart by people with malicious intent. Data breaches have become a severe issue for most organisations and most times could be carried out by employees who have access to information. A recent report by Verizon showed that 1 out of every four cyber attacks that occurred in the past year were carried out by insiders, primarily motivated by financial gain, espionage and simple mistakes or misuse.
This shows clearly that in-house sabotage is a severe threat and listed below are some ways to protect your data:
- Set And Enforce Policies In Your Organization: Enforcing policies would let you prevent unwanted data access behaviour and separation of duties. When setting these policies, bear in mind your security and compliance requirements; the set systems should be flexible enough to meet your organisation’s needs.
- Schedule Security Training: Many employees have unknowingly given hackers access to their organisation’s data by replying spam emails or downloading files containing malware. Out of the 1000 IT personnel in a recent survey, 54% said that careless employees were the root causes of cyber attacks. This highlights the need for employees to be brought up to date with trends in the security system through security training. The training should be made as interactive as possible so the employees can understand what is at stake.
- Know Who You’re Hiring: It is crucial to run quality background checks on new employees to be sure that they do not have any criminal records, money issues or any other issues that can make them desperate enough to exchange valuable information for money.
- Sort Your Employees Into Categories: This is another way to minimise the risk of data breach. This can be done by sorting your workforce into privileged and standard categories. The privileged employeesare the ones who should be closely monitored as they have access to sensitive information and client data; they pose the more insider threat than the standard employees and should be provided with more secure systems.
- Investigate Security Systems With In-House Sabotage Monitoring Tools: Your security system should be up to date and able to quickly identify and understand all the activities of the users in order to detect incidents which are out of the norm. It should also be updated with real-time alert features that enable your security team to be instantly notified the moment there is a data breach. These days security tools can tell which applications on which users spend most of their time, what they spend the time doing and in which sessions specific applications were used. They can even tell if suspicious accounts or computers are being accessed.
- Keep Close Tabs On High-Risk Users: Some employees that have access to sensitive information should be closely watched. Watch out for abnormal behaviour and users who act differently from their peers. Users who also seem to be idle during working hours should be closely monitored.
- Back Up Valuable Information: Despite having up to date security systems, data breaches still occur. Using cloud storage to keep valuable information would come in handy in the case of a cyber attack. Having your data stored elsewhere will speed up the process of data recovery and save you time and money. Ensure that your password is kept secret and stored offline to prevent in-house sabotaging.
- Document All Security Events: Schedule reports on all security incidents especially insider-related ones to have a clear understanding of your overall security. This keeps you abreast on everything that happens security-wise. Graphical dashboards and custom reports on applications and data will not only improve your security system, but it would also ensure strict adherence to your security policies.
Above all, try to stay informed about recent developments in the world of cyber security so you can always be ahead of cybercriminals.
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