Five Tips to Avoid Security Breaches
Security breaches affect billions of people every year — data breaches and cyberattacks impacted 765 million people in three months of 2018 alone. Along with the life-changing personal effects of a data breach for consumers, companies targeted by attackers stand to lose valuable business data, revenue and public confidence. As a result, all organizations need to know how to avoid data and security breaches.
It’s impossible to avoid security threats completely; however, diligent companies can implement strategies and procedures to prevent security breaches from wreaking havoc. Here are five tips for data breach protection.
1. Secure Access and Minimize Points of Entry
Perhaps the easiest way to avoid security breaches is to ensure everyone in your company understands basic cybersecurity. Procedures to emphasize throughout the organization include:
- Creating strong passwords
- Limiting access to employees who need it
- Keeping software updated
You should also work to minimize points of entry. Internet of Things (IoT) devices have increased attack surface in recent years and are often poorly secured, so limiting their use and taking appropriate precautions is essential.
2. Limit the Number of Point Solutions You Use
Point solutions are tools developed to address single problems, and they can be useful in some cybersecurity scenarios. However, using too many point solutions opens up a network to security breaches. This is because each of these tools must be updated and secured individually. Coordinating this maintenance can be challenging even for the largest teams, so it’s easy for tools that aren’t used frequently to slip through the cracks.
Point solutions also slow down response to threats due to their decentralized nature. If you want to avoid data breaches efficiently, implement a security fabric to cover the entire attack surface and give you full visibility and control over applications.
3. Come up With a Comprehensive Security Plan
The best way to avoid security breaches is to come up with a comprehensive security plan. Your plan should identify existing vulnerabilities, present solutions and clearly outline security procedures. Make sure every employee understands the security plan and its purpose — IT professionals aren’t the only ones responsible for preventing security breaches, after all.
4. Conduct Regular Security Assessments
Regular security assessments are important steps in data breach prevention. You cannot fix weak points in your network if you don’t know where they are. Because threats are always evolving, it’s a good idea to conduct vulnerability assessments constantly.
Make sure to test against every system in your network, internal and external. Getting a third party to conduct assessments can help ensure you’re getting a realistic picture of your risks.
5. Decide How You’ll Respond
Deciding your response tactic ahead of time prepares you to respond quickly in the event a breach occurs, stopping the threat before it escalates. Have procedures in place to ensure responsiveness and read up on your responsibilities — depending on your data center’s location and the nature of the breach, laws may require you to report it.
Contact DataSpan for Assistance
Using these five tips can help you prevent security breaches and protect your organization’s sensitive information. If you are affected by a breach, it’s important to respond appropriately by learning from the situation and addressing contributing factors.
At DataSpan, we have over 40 years of experience providing security solutions for data centers. We can provide security assessments and recommendations and even help you develop and implement a comprehensive security plan. For more information, find a representative near you or reach out to us today.
