5 Ways to Prevent a Data Breach

on October 23, 2023 at 9:39 am

Data breaches, whether hacking, insider theft, or accidental data exposure, are common. But what can you do to prevent them from happening?

The answer lies in simple best practices. These include training employees, updating software, encrypting data, and implementing routine system evaluations. The goal is to eliminate vulnerabilities before they become breaches.

Invest in Cybersecurity

So, how to prevent a data breach? Investing in cybersecurity is a critical way to prevent data breaches. A data breach is expensive and can cause irreparable damage to an organization’s reputation. In addition, the costs of a data breach can be passed on to customers and investors, resulting in lost revenue and stock price fluctuations.

It’s also essential to educate employees about cybersecurity and avoid phishing attacks. This can help to reduce the risk of a data breach, and it can also improve employee performance.

Finally, it’s essential to have a good incident response plan in place. This can help minimize the impact of a data breach and save money in the long run. According to a 2021 report by Ponemon Institute and IBM, organizations with high incident response planning have held USD 1.49 million on average.

Individuals who experience a data breach may lose personal information, such as their name and Social Security number. Thieves can use this information to steal their identity, access their bank accounts, and ruin their credit rating.

Create a Strong Password

You use personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords, or passphrases to access your bank accounts, email, online shopping, and other websites. These safeguards are essential for protecting your data from hackers and unauthorized users.

Suppose a hacker can guess or crack your password. In that case, they can steal sensitive information that should be kept private, such as credit card details, social media posts, personal details, and other confidential data. This information can be used for fraud, identity theft, and other cyber crimes.

Weak and easy-to-guess passwords are the leading cause of data breaches. Often, these are based on personal information, such as your name, date of birth, or pet names, or they’re simple sequences such as 12345 or qwerty.

A strong password is at least 12 characters long and contains upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special symbols. This dramatically prolongs the time it takes for a hacker to brute force your password and gain access to your account. Using a password manager helps, too. It makes creating and keeping track of passwords for all your different online accounts easier.

Monitor Your Network

As a business, you should establish a monitoring process to identify vulnerabilities and address threats. This can be done by installing software or using AI tools that look for unusual network activity and alert security professionals when there’s a potential problem.

While you may think that hackers are the only ones who could access your data, a breach can also be caused by physical actions. Criminals can steal an employee’s work or personal device to obtain sensitive information, break into an office to get paper documents or physical hard drives or place skimming devices on physical point-of-sale (POS) terminals to gather credit or debit card data.

It’s essential to have a plan to handle a breach when it occurs, including how you will notify affected individuals and what steps you will take to protect them. It would help if you also determined what legal requirements you must follow. For example, most states require notification of a breach that affects personal information. You should also ensure that any information improperly posted on your website is removed immediately.

Secure Your Devices

While no one security product or strategy can prevent all data breaches, good cybersecurity practices can help reduce the risk of an attack. These include regular backups, encrypting data, using multifactor authentication, and installing the latest patches for your software and hardware.

A breach can occur in several ways, such as lost or stolen devices or malware attacks. Cybercriminals constantly evolve their tactics and find new ways to access sensitive information. Therefore, having a robust security strategy and continually auditing your processes is essential to ensure you are following best practices.

If your business experiences a data breach, it is essential to communicate with consumers quickly and clearly. This will limit the damage and keep customers informed about how to protect themselves. Additionally, communicating with consumers may also prevent phishing scams and other malicious activities tied to the breach. Some businesses even post updates about the breach on their website to allow consumers to check for themselves if they are at risk. This type of transparency can save your business time and money in the long run.

Change Your Passwords Regularly

A data breach can occur when hackers use a password or account repeatedly. This can result from malware or a virus but also from employees who have access to a password because they share computers or laptops.

Regularly changing passwords can prevent this. You should change passwords at least once every two months or more often if your business experiences high cybersecurity threats. This will help to prevent hackers from using stolen passwords for a prolonged period.

In addition, regularly changing passwords can prevent hackers from stealing information through hacking techniques like credential stuffing attacks. Credential stuffing is when hackers take stolen passwords from one website and attempt to use them on other sites to gain unauthorized access. This can be prevented by frequently changing passwords and using unique passwords for each account.

Another benefit of regularly changing passwords is that it can mitigate the risk of disgruntled former employees getting unauthorized access to a business’s accounts. Ex-employees with access to a company’s passwords can hack into the network and wreak havoc.