Every single business that opens its doors will face the threat of a data breach, and it is only a matter of time before some kind of information makes its way onto the internet. Because it is so common for information to get stolen and spread on places like the dark web, it is absolutely essential that business properly defend against a data breach. This way, when information on your company does get into the wrong hands, you will be more likely to realize what is happening early and can defend your sensitive information.
Secure Interactions with the Internet
The first step to protecting against a data breach is to add essential layers of security to the web interactions of you and your employees. This means having a modern and reliable endpoint protection service that can detect malicious activities on web pages and identify potentially harmful files that have been downloaded. Because of the rise in hybrid and remote work, every employee should also have access to a VPN. If someone that has any company data at all is not accessing it from a reliable, secure connection, then a VPN is an essential tool to defend against data breaches.
Phishing Training to Prevent Data Breaches
Given the high impact a successful phishing attack can have, the importance of proper phishing training cannot be understated. If you or your employees are not up to date on the most recent forms of attacks hackers are using or can’t easily identify a phishing email, then it is only a matter of time before valuable company information gets stolen. Your company’s endpoint protection and other security features should help lower the chance of a phishing emails getting into an employee’s inbox, but every member of your business’ team should be able to identify and discard a phishing email according to company policies.
Taking a Layered Security Approach
Sometimes taking every step necessary to protect your own data won’t help because the information you give to a service or purchased product will be the attack vector for a data breach. This means that even though you did everything right, your information still got leaked. In this scenario, you want to have robust layers of security at the ready to defend your business accounts from cyberattacks. Having a well-rounded cybersecurity defense means implementing endpoint protection in conjunction with a next-generation firewall and multifactor authentication. With these tools, you can see when attacks from outside your network try to come inside and prevent someone from logging into an account with compromised credentials.
Summary
Some statistics show that 5.1 million records get stolen from businesses across the world every single day. This means the earlier your business implements the right tools and strong policies for protecting its data, the better the chances of a data breach having a low impact on your business. Data breach protection begins with the proper training and implementation of the right security tools, but it also requires an ongoing understanding of the cybersecurity threat horizon. Here at Robinett Consulting, we don’t think small or medium businesses should have to go it alone, so we want to hear from you, so we can help you improve your security posture and keep your business running safely.
