How to Reduce and Mitigate Data Leaks

In the first article about data leakages, we took a deep dive into the causes and consequences that follow when private information from your business gets into the wrong hands.

Preventing unauthorised access to privileged information is essential for every company in the digital age. In this article, we take a look at some policies you can implement to secure your data and take you through a response plan that you can implement if a data leak occurs.

Plugging the leak before it happens

The majority of data leaks are not malicious. They usually take place as a result of human error, and it’s not easy to prevent your team from making mistakes no matter how well you train them.

However, it’s important and possible to implement systems that take away the potential for major data loss as a result of employees making simple mistakes.

Here are a few strategies you can employ in your business to secure your data against leakages

Train your team

IT security training is essential for all company employees in a modern business;
As part of this training, you’ll want to brief your team on secure email policy, how to identify risky behaviours, and why it’s important to never share sensitive company information with outsiders.

Implement zero trust security

Data leaks take place when the wrong person has access to your information;
Limit your team’s data privileges so that each member can only access files and other information that are essential to their tasks.

Automate your tracking and monitoring

There are many excellent types of software that will allow you to monitor suspicious behaviour like sensitive files being emailed outside of the organisation or unknown users accessing your folders.
Automatic alerts and access denials can be built in to help you respond swiftly to a data leak.

Mitigate data leaks within your organisation by further enforcing cybersecurity best practices, such as;

Controlling devices with a Mobile Device Management solution
Implement robust email security policies
Ensure strong printer controls
Enforce real-time data auditing

What to do if a data leak takes place

As with any security event, time is of the essence when you realise that a data leak has taken place in your business.

As soon as the leak is brought to your attention you should take the following steps to minimise the damage it may cause.

Identify the responsible party. This calls for a lot of honesty and trust between you and your team but it’s always better to admit your involvement in a data leak than trying to hide it.
Understand exactly what’s been leaked. By documenting the number of files that have leaked out of the organisation and knowing what they contain, you’ll have a good idea of what information could potentially be in the wrong hands.
Beef up your security to prevent future leaks. Once you understand exactly how the leak occurred you can take steps to ensure that the same chain of events never occurs again. This will help secure your company’s data in the future.

Secure cloud storage is an essential tool in preventing data leaks

One of the reasons why leaked data is so dangerous is that anyone can read it and use its contents to do harm. But if your data is encrypted and safe in the cloud, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will be able to access it – and even if they do it’ll be incredibly difficult for them to decode it and make sense of the contents.

A secure cloud storage solution could be your company’s secret weapon in the fight against data loss. To learn more, browse our range of packages and find one that suits your personal or business needs.

Understanding Data Leakages – Part 1

Cybercriminals are responsible for a huge amount of data-related crimes every year – but they aren’t the only ones responsible for the loss of sensitive business information.

A data leak, which is often the result of employee carelessness or weak IT security policies, can cause crucial information to flow out of your business, even if it wasn’t deliberate.

In this article we unpack the notion of a data leak, find out how it’s different from a data breach, And explore some of the ways data leaks occur.

is it a data leak or a data breach?

If your company suffers a sudden loss of sensitive data this is probably the first question your IT security consultant will ask. Knowing the difference between a data leak and a data breach is the first step in keeping your organisation’s information safe in the digital age.

A data leak is any unintentional sharing of sensitive information with an unauthorised user outside your organisation. As the name implies, the ‘leak’ usually takes place from the inside out and often involves an employee or trusted user.
A data breach is a deliberate attempt to break through your IT security system from the outside, usually by hackers or cyber criminals. This type of crime takes place from the outside in.

Put differently, the difference between a data leak and a data breach is like the difference between leaving your front door open and someone breaking the lock to get in.

what causes a data leak?

As we mentioned above, most data leaks take place due to negligence or carelessness. Here are the different types of data leaks along with the most likely cause of each one.

accidental data leaks

These data security failures take place by accident and are often caused by employees –

sending an email containing sensitive information to the wrong person
sharing access to confidential folders with people outside the organisation is another common cause of data leaks
taking videos of sensitive company information or events and sharing them on social media is another way data privacy can be compromised

malicious data leaks

This type of leak is deliberate, usually carried out by a disgruntled employee who –

seeks to discredit the company or blackmail the management

Malicious leaks often take place anonymously and it can be difficult to determine who the original culprit was.

data leaks carried out by outsiders

This type of incident is almost never an accident. Like a data breach, it is typically carried out by an outsider who plans to use the data for criminal purposes.

perpetrators will usually try to trick an employee of the company into sending them confidential or giving them access to privileged files and folders
IT managers can sometimes track and investigate this type of leak by flagging emails and folder access granted to people outside the organisation

data leaks caused by IT security failure

This type of leak is caused by incorrect network security settings or errors in mailing list automation software.

by the time the error is discovered, important data will probably already have leaked out of the company
identifying the cause of the leak and ensuring that doesn’t occur again is essential in this scenario.

protect your data from cybercriminals

No matter what causes a data leak, the cost to your business can be huge. Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed financially damaging data leaks at companies including household names like Nespresso.

Ensuring that your IT security is on point and that your data is encrypted and secured with cloud storage will help you avoid a similar scenario in your own business.

In our next article, Data Leaks Part 2, we’ll explore the topic of data leaks in more detail and look at some ways you can protect your business against this preventable but damaging type of cybersecurity failure.

Tag: data leakages

Mitigating Data Leaks | Part 2