In a ballot of 1,000 enterprise professionals and software program builders, almost 45% say their firm has confronted an information breach throughout the final 5 years. That is no shock, as knowledge breach stories from Nasdaq present that the variety of knowledge breaches grew by greater than 68% in 2021, and this quantity is certain to develop.
SEE: Cellular system safety coverage (TechRepublic Premium)
As the speed of knowledge breaches and cyberattacks will increase yearly, corporations are shedding thousands and thousands of {dollars} in income and authorized charges. In reality, Capital One needed to pay $190 million as a settlement to prospects whose private knowledge was stolen in an information breach.
The query now’s — how can organizations handle and safe their knowledge from unauthorized entry and cyberattacks? That is the place knowledge encryption comes into play. On this article, we’ll have a look at how knowledge encryption as a safety measure is significant in managing knowledge entry and safety.
Why knowledge encryption is essential for managing knowledge entry and safety
Information is without doubt one of the key property of any group. Since attackers are continually searching for new methods to move via safety measures, companies should make a acutely aware effort to guard their knowledge. Earlier than we see a few of the methods manufacturers can safe their knowledge, listed here are some key the reason why knowledge encryption is essential for managing knowledge entry and safety.
Secures knowledge when there may be safety misconfiguration
Safety misconfiguration happens when safety settings are configured inaccurately or when safety controls are deployed with default usernames and passwords. Your system’s configuration should adjust to safety requirements resembling OSWAP High 10 or CIS benchmarks. Utilizing the default usernames or password that comes with any software, web site, server or system will make them weak to assaults.
Safety misconfiguration is without doubt one of the most typical threats to knowledge safety. In line with a 2020 Verizon Information Breach Investigation Report, misconfigurations induced 10% of all knowledge breaches. Gartner additionally predicts that misconfigurations will trigger 99% of all firewall breaches by 2023.
Encrypting your knowledge will make sure that your knowledge is secure even when there are misconfigurations or knowledge breaches.
Third-party purposes can expose knowledge
Utilizing unauthorized apps, even those downloaded from respected marketplaces, can put your group’s knowledge in danger. Safety flaws in third-party apps can create backdoors that give hackers entry to delicate knowledge.
Hackers now additionally use third-party apps to unfold ransomware. Since it isn’t as frequent as phishing, this sort of assault has a excessive success charge. In reality, a ransomware known as Ragnar Locker focused distant administration software program utilized by MSPs and encrypted their knowledge. The attackers then demanded $200,000 to 600,000 for decryption.
Utilizing knowledge encryption will make sure that third-party purposes would not have entry to your group’s delicate knowledge and knowledge. The apps will solely have entry to the data you permit.
Information encryption greatest practices
As the speed of cyberattacks on organizations will increase yearly, corporations must take actionable steps when encrypting their knowledge. Listed below are some greatest practices for organizations when utilizing knowledge encryption.
Construct a unified knowledge safety coverage
No matter your group’s measurement, you’re almost definitely utilizing a number of infrastructures and software program platforms. For example, you would possibly host some assets in your native servers whereas internet hosting others on cloud servers.
From a safety perspective, utilizing various kinds of environments and platforms will increase safety dangers resembling knowledge breaches, phishing, hacking and ransomware. The extra instruments that a company makes use of, the extra knowledge is generated. It’s very simple for the info to be misplaced or misused. For that reason, it’s essential to construct a unified knowledge safety coverage.
A unified knowledge safety coverage is a safety technique that lets you use, monitor, retailer and handle your whole group’s knowledge. The safety coverage ought to embody all the info saved by your group no matter location, resembling cloud companies, native storage, servers and databases. It will guarantee that each data-at-rest, data-in-use and data-in-transit are saved secure. As soon as such safety insurance policies are established, one of many key challenges is to implement them throughout totally different platforms.
Implement entry management
Entry management is a safety methodology that enables organizations to manage who has entry to firm knowledge or different assets. This methodology of safety controls entry except bodily or digital authentication credentials are offered. Examples of authentication credentials embody passwords, biometric scans, private identification numbers, safety tokens and biometric scans.
By implementing entry management, you’ll considerably cut back the chance of firm knowledge getting leaked. Entry management is much more essential while you work with cloud environments the place knowledge will be accessed from wherever or in case your group makes use of a BYOD coverage.
Use an identification and entry administration answer
An IAM answer permits organizations to maintain credentials secure and handle entry to knowledge. It additionally offers an environment friendly means for implementing a zero belief framework.
Zero belief is a framework for securing infrastructure and knowledge. The safety framework assumes that the group’s community is all the time in danger so it requires that each one customers — whether or not inside or exterior a company — be licensed and authenticated earlier than they’re granted entry to knowledge and purposes.
Listed below are some issues to think about when selecting an IAM answer:
- Multi-factor authentication: This helps shield knowledge even when a person loses their entry credentials.
- Third-party vendor administration: It will assist organizations make sure that third-party subcontractors don’t abuse their entry.
- Fast response to safety occasions: For instance, blocking suspicious accounts.
- Ease of use and user-friendliness.
- The IAM answer should be appropriate with totally different community architectures and working programs.
Conclusion
Information breaches are very costly and may value organizations thousands and thousands of {dollars} in misplaced income. Together with inside issues that happen after an information or safety breach, organizations additionally lose credibility within the eyes of shoppers. In line with a examine by Okta and YouGov, 39% of shoppers say they misplaced belief in an organization once they heard it had an information breach or misused knowledge. Eighty-eight % say they gained’t buy from a enterprise they don’t belief. To keep away from these results of a safety and knowledge breach, knowledge encryption is a should.
Information encryption will assist shield what you are promoting’s delicate knowledge and buyer info from malicious intent. Even when an unauthorized particular person or entity comes throughout your knowledge whereas in transit, they gained’t be capable to learn it as a result of will probably be encrypted.
Ben Herzberg is an skilled tech chief and e book writer with a background in endpoint safety, analytics, and software and knowledge safety. Ben stuffed roles such because the CTO of Cynet, and director of risk analysis at Imperva. Ben is the chief scientist for Satori, the DataSecOps platform.
