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Understanding and Preventing Data Breaches

Your company probably handles critical assets such as customers’ personal data, intellectual property or other proprietary data, you are at risk of a data breach. It doesn’t matter to hackers  if you are a Fortune 500 company or a small “ma and pa” shop—cyber thieves are always looking for their next victim. It is often assumed that smaller businesses can escape attention from cyber crooks, but according to industry experts, an increasing number of data breaches are occurring at companies with fewer than 100 employees. No company of any size is completely safe from a data breach.

Data Breach Basics

A data breach is an incident where private data is accessed and/or stolen by an unauthorized individual. Data can be stolen by a third party, such as a hacker, or by an internal actor (perhaps a disgruntled or recently fired employee). Sometimes your data is held hostage for very high ransoms in an attack called “Ransomware”.

Data Breach Prevention Techniques

To reduce the chance for a data breach, it is your best bet to develop an IT Risk Management Plan at your organization. Your risk management solutions should leverage industry standards and best practices to assess hazards from unauthorized access to hacking, theft through the  destruction of your organization’s vital information systems. Consider the following when implementing risk management strategies at your organization:

Make a Plan: Create a formal, documented risk management plan that addresses the scope, roles, responsibilities, compliance criteria and methodology for performing cyber risk assessments. This plan must include a description of all systems used at the organization based on their function, the data stored and processed and importance to the organization.

Review your cyber risk plan on an annual basis and update it whenever there are significant changes to your information systems, facilities where systems are stored or other conditions in your business that may affect the impact of risk to the organization.

Simple Practices: Drill your employees to NEVER give sensitive information like Social Security numbers or credit card numbers out over the phone unless you can verify the identity of the person on the other line and even then, they might seek clarification from a manager.

Shred: Shred all credit reports and other sensitive data before disposal.

Empower Your Team: Educate employees about phishing and pharming scams. Remind them not to click on anything that looks suspicious or seems too good to be true. Employees are the number one entry point for hackers. 

Get Help: If your company doesn’t have an IT department, hire an outside company to set up the proper security measures for your computer network.

Review: Always monitor credit reports and other financial data for the company. If you see things that don’t belong, investigate.

Shhhh!: Do not allow employees to write down passwords in the office.

Always encrypt sensitive data.

Remember, we’re Here to Help. If you have any questions, please call on us.

We’re Here to Help

A data breach can be very costly and even has the ability to shut a business down. Contact us today for resources to help support your cyber security efforts. We have the expertise to ensure you have the right coverage in place to protect your business from a data breach.