3 Data Security Pitfalls to Avoid

It can only be a matter of time before a data security incident will take place in any organization. In that regard, most businesses are now fearful of ‘when’ they will become the next victim, rather than ‘if’. Hence, now is the time to review your threat landscape and look into your data security strategies to ensure you’re not forced out of business. To know if your data security is doomed for failure, you must avoid the following pitfalls.

You consider your organization too small to be targeted

According to the Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon in 2019, over 43% of all data security attacks were aimed at small businesses. An insurance carrier called Hiscox, revealed that more than half of all small to medium businesses experienced a data breach in 2019, while 4 out of 10 firms suffered multiple data security attack incidents. Besides, another report from the US National Cybersecurity Alliance revealed that an estimated 60% of small companies went out of business within a few months of a data security attack. All this illustrates the grave consequences of inadequate data security measures in companies, regardless of size.

Every business, whether large or small, needs to make data security the top priority for protecting their most important assets. Most small business owners are of the opinion that it can be unaffordable to keep their organizations safe from a cyber-attack. However, the cost of a data breach could be far more devastating with impactful consequences on the bottom line.

An IBM report reveals that companies with fewer than 500 employees experience losses of more than $2.5 million on average. This is why it is crucial to spend a portion of your budget on proactive security measures such as digital rights management. At the same time, doubling your data security budget does not mean your overall security is increased. When it comes to cybersecurity investments, it is not a one for one trade-off. Best data security strategies include intelligently allocating your security budget and focusing on your objectives – whether it is to safeguard client information, protect intellectual property or prevent network outages. This can help you to prioritize your spending and ensure appropriate business compromises between data security, its use and expenses.

You are unable to prevent polymorphic, zero-day or multi-vector data security attacks

The evolution of cyber-attacks, since it began in the 1980s, has forced every organization to upgrade the way it safeguards its digital assets. In the 1990s, cyber-attacks became sophisticated as criminals began to target Network Systems, thus making firewalls a crucial line of defense in security. In the 2000s, the proliferation of applications also revealed their vulnerabilities that made intrusion prevention systems commonplace. And from 2010, we have been witness to zero-day threats that employ extremely invasive polymorphic information to circumvent conventional security layers. To help tackle data threats, behavioural analysis step tools are now used. Today, we are viewing the rapid scale of multi-vectored data attacks such as WannaCry and NotPeya. In these attacks, cybercriminals find ways of exploiting multiple fronts — including network, mobile devices and cloud environments — simultaneously. This is where data security gets complex. Unfortunately, the world today has only 3% of its systems that can defend themselves from such polymorphic, multi-vector and zero-day attacks.

Data security is not an application that you can install and forget – it requires dynamic action with continual threat analysis. Hackers are financially incentivized and are continually looking to innovate, which explains why they keep gaining ground. In future years, cybercriminals are more likely to attack as data becomes more valuable, and cause extensive damage through sophisticated hacking methods that could be much harder to defend. To respond robustly, every organization must ramp up its defences with various levels of data security methods. One such holistic solution is digital rights management that can potentially be a game-changing product in data breach protection. It is a proven enterprise-ready technology that deserves due consideration in the face of advanced data breach threats, protecting information at rest, in transit, and while in use.

You are being submerged under data

Hunting for signs of a cyberattack can be akin to searching for a needle in a haystack. Historically, it has taken companies, both big and small, an average of six months to identify a data breach. This is why, more than ever, your organization must have the right tools to recognize and analyze critical data security threat attempts. Security software such as digital rights management (DRM) that offers tools to control data access and use, as well as safeguard data in storage or while at rest, is crucial. You can ensure that your company information is kept safe while helping to prevent a data attack by implementing a proactive data security solution such as DRM.

The above 3 pitfalls are not exhaustive but the most common. By planning ahead and mitigating risks on each of the above, you can make sure your business is protected from data security threats.