The IT industry is exploding with innovation and new developments. The world is quickly becoming digitalized. However, just like any other burgeoning industry, there are always challenges to overcome. One of the major challenges the IT industry faces today is data protection.
Learn how to protect yourself against data breaches and ensure your company’s data remains secure. This blog post will cover topics such as what data breaches are, methods for prevention, and steps you can take to recover after a breach.
Why is it important to secure data?
Data is the life-blood of every business. It’s what drives big decisions, and it can be a company’s most valuable asset. This means that data must be protected from all threats.
Something as seemingly harmless as a lost laptop or an infected email campaign could cause irreparable damage to any business. So, protecting data from unauthorized access, destructive malware, and other malicious cyberattacks is critical to the survival of any organization.
What are the security vulnerabilities in the IT industry?
Despite the prevalence of high-tech security measures, data breaches are still a major threat to the IT industry. The IT industry is at risk of natural disasters, power outages, and human errors.
Additionally, with so many innovative new products on the market, there is always some degree of vulnerability present in any new product.
Furthermore, companies that offer these innovative products introduce vulnerabilities into the network that they build for customers. Thus, introducing potential vulnerabilities into their own networks.
The introduction of these new products also causes problems when it comes to the compatibility of different platforms with current systems. This can lead to data breaches if not taken seriously enough by the relevant parties involved.
How to prevent data breaches?
There are many ways to prevent data breaches.
Some of the most common prevention methods include:
- Hiring a data security expert to conduct an audit of your systems and provide recommendations on how you can improve your security.
- Implementing routine tests that check for vulnerabilities in your system and fix them before they can be exploited.
- Conducting fire drills and exercises to test the preparedness of your business for a cybersecurity incident.
- Ensuring that all staff members understand the importance of data protection, and how to protect against cyber attacks.
As we mentioned earlier, there are many different types of data breaches. When you’re working with a data security expert, it’s wise to ask them about the type(s) of the breach they’re concerned about. This will help you identify any potential weaknesses in your system that need to be strengthened.
Importance of cyber-insurance
Every day, over 3 billion records are exposed in some sort of data breach. Cyber-insurance is a new form of insurance that is available to cover the costs of data breaches.
It’s important for companies to purchase cyber insurance because they won’t be able to afford the costs associated with these data breaches. It can cost up to $40,000 per violation for remediation and notification expenses alone. If your business has 500,000 records exposed in a breach, this would equate to more than $20 million worth of expenses.
Insurers offer cyber-insurance policies at various levels of coverage for costs of not only remediation and notification but also attorney fees, regulatory fines, and penalties.
Informing your employees about these policies and explaining why it is important for them to be aware is helpful as well. Employees need to know what steps they can take in order to protect themselves from a data breach as well as how much a data breach will cost the company…in terms of time and money!
Conclusion
Data is your company’s most valuable asset. It is important to protect this asset by creating a data backup plan, implementing the latest security protocols, and having cyber insurance in place.
To ensure that you are able to meet your data protection needs, you will need to evaluate the different types of protection available.