Cybersecurity is a big contest all over the globe. However, the type of challenges inflicted by hackers is major as shown in MySQL backup binary logs. Not a day passes by without a big company headlining that they have experienced a breach of very important data. In this article, you shall learn how to prevent the most common data breaches.
What are these common data breaches?
Before being able to counter or prevent cyber threats, you must fully understand the common types of breaches. Today, no organization is ever cyber threat proof as the attack surface keeps on expanding. You may block a threat from one angle only to realize that you have been compromised from a different angle Online casino players will know why.
Here is a list of the most common data breaches that you should keep an eye on.
- Physical attacks
This sort of data breach often gets people off-guard. The reason that many people assume hackers only do their work from a safe distance or from an underground bunker. This is a false assumption and often times organizations pay for it heavily.
First, you should know that hackers might break into your house as they have specialists for this. If you fall into the trap of thinking that physical security of your system is not necessary, think again!
- Malware
Malware attacks are on the rise lately. By definition, malware stands for malicious software: in other words software full of worms that opens up the surface for the hacker to exploit a system and even linked systems.
- Stolen credentials
Hack attacks that occur often result from weak or stolen credentials. Opportunistic hackers always leverage this vulnerability. Eight out of ten data breaches classified as hack attacks often arise from weak or stolen passwords.
- Application-based attacks
Hackers like to exploit already existing routes. If you have a poorly written application or even a poorly configured network, then you may be in trouble. Hackers may use these existing routes to access your data resulting in a data breach.
The type of data accessed by criminals includes date of birth, credit card numbers, social security information, and even names.
Now let’s have a look at the 7 best practices to prevent the most common data breaches:
- Use strong passwords – Any password used should be random and awfully hard to crash. Another way you can heighten the security is by changing the passwords from time to time.
- Security briefing – Providing security and confidentiality briefing to clients, employees and others who are involved in data security activities is a positive step towards bringing that needed awareness to your team.
- Protect information – It’s a good thing to protect information at all times. Sensitive information should be protected whenever being stored, used or transferred.
- Download restriction – Any application or file that may be of adherence to hackers should not be downloaded. This is to prevent application-based attacks, and also the malware spreading to external drives after download.
- Restrict the use of the unencrypted device – A device that is not encrypted should be banned in any organization. Gadgets like laptops, phones, and other portable devices that are unencrypted create an attack surface for hackers.
- Regulate the transfer of data – You should bar the regular transfer of data from one machine to another via a removable media. The reason for this is that if the removable media is misplaced, this can put the information in there at risk.
- Automate security systems – Automating the systems that check on passwords, security settings and firewalls will bring a positive effect of reducing attacks on sensitive information.
Living in this current world of computers, you can’t expect everything to go on smoothly. Things are bound to go wrong sometimes due to an internal or an external source. However, there exists a way to mitigate the amount and types of risk.
Following the above-mentioned steps will see you on the safe side of data breach related challenges.