credentials. Once the hackers have the username and password, they can simply log into the real site.
- Insider attack: Rogue employees and contractors can steal data and sell it to hackers. Cybercriminals can also simply walk into an office and access a terminal if that office lacks adequate physical security measures. Never underestimate the damage that simple human error can cause.
- Man-in-the-middle: Hackers have scams that allow them to intercept data as it moves between points. For example, a criminal might sit in a café and create a public wi-fi hotspot with a name like COFFEE_SHOP_PUBLIC_WIFI. If anyone connects to this network, the hacker can capture their data.
- Lost or stolen device: Employees often carry laptops and USB drives with sensitive data, especially when working remotely. These devices can fall into the wrong hands, either through loss or theft.
- Social engineering: Hackers can use manipulation techniques to trick people into granting systems access. This technique is even easier in the age of social media. Look at anyone's feed, and you can find dozens of password clues, such as birthdays, favorite sports teams, and the names of children or pets.
How Do You Prevent Data Breaches?
If you want to understand data breach prevention, you first have to think like a hacker. That means looking at the whole of your infrastructure, including your users, and trying to identify weak points in your data security strategy. Here are seven essential steps to help protect your sensitive data.
1) Train Your Employees to Recognize Phishing Emails
An international study by Interpol shows that phishing attacks increased by 59% during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. These attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and even tech-savvy users can fall for a well-crafted phishing email.
If your employees don't know how to recognize common signs of phishing attacks, then any cybercriminal could gain access to your data. After all, it only takes one person to compromise an entire system.
Even criminal defense lawyers, like the team at Spolin Law P.C., see that when companies utilize cybersecurity best practices they have the tools they need to investigate what really happened, especially in the case of identity theft.
The right security training can help employees spot phishing attempts and dangerous links. Make sure your workers know to look for signs like:
- Poor grammar or misspellings
- Anonymous messages that don't identify the employee by name
- Emails that come from free domains like Gmail.com or Yahoo.com
- Emails that include web links instead of text-based messages
- Unsolicited attachments that could carry malware
- Domain names that don't match the company's name (Fedx.com instead of Fedex.com, for example)
You can also use phishing simulators like Infosec IQ, Gophish, or LUCY to test your employees' ability to spot fraudulent emails. When you find knowledge gaps, you can include new information in your next training session.
Keep your employees updated about the most recent phishing trends, and encourage them to report suspicious emails to their managers.
2) Use Security Levels to Limit Access to Sensitive Data
Only a few of your employees need access to sensitive data such as client payment info and business development plans. A customer service worker, for example, doesn't need to view a client's credit card number. Perform a data audit and make sure that all sensitive data is on a need-to-know basis.
Set a security level for each person so you can limit their access to systems. Doing so will make it harder for a hacker to steal data while using an employee's profile. Most operating systems and major software apps make it easy to set security levels. Microsoft, for instance, uses sensitivity labels that encrypt files and folders. Only users with permission can view the folder's contents.
It's also a good idea to monitor event logs to see who's accessing sensitive files and folders. Many cloud platforms will offer detailed analytics reports so you can identify any unauthorized access and change permis