Modern enterprises use more data than ever before!
Concurrently, the threat landscape is becoming more perilous, and there is a shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals. It is a dangerous cocktail that can expose businesses to costly hacks and flaws!
To assist in reducing the cybersecurity gap and ensure the safety of sensitive data, many established IT security engineers are switching to data security. Since information technology security is a subset of cybersecurity, IT security specialists may find it easy to make the shift.
Let’s examine some essential data privacy best practices and how to implement them.
Top 1: Recognize Your Information
Data asset auditing entails discovering and documenting all of your valuable data. Simply put, you need to know what digital assets your firm possesses, where they are stored, and who has access to them.
Once you have a high-level overview of your company’s stock, you can begin to sort and prioritize its components. Data in your firm typically includes highly confidential and less sensitive data, each of which has its unique security needs. It is especially significant for banking and medical institutions.
Top 2: Create a Plan for Managing Data
To maximize its value, data must be meticulously organized and managed!
So, it’s crucial to implement a solid data governance policy. It is essential for minimizing potential harm and maintaining the safety, security, and transparency of the company’s operations at every point of customer contact.
Data governance is the process through which an organization ensures that its data is created, valued, stored, transferred, and kept secure. To guarantee data compliance and security, businesses should implement data governance frameworks that spell out rules, roles, and processes.
Top 3: Intensify Controls
Limit who can access your files, especially if you run a cloud-based business.
Human and otherwise, many different identities access and interact with data in modern businesses. Identity could refer to a human software engineer, consultant, or data intern. Workloads or digital services could stand in for a non-human identity. Despite this, many companies still don’t know who these people are or what they’re capable of doing.
Top 4: Protect Your Information Using a Password
By using encryption, sensitive information is protected from prying eyes. Encrypting information prevents unauthorized parties from reading and using it for their ends. Files, discs, folders, and even entire drives can all be encrypted.
Data encryption at the service level protects corporate information against unauthorized access.
Top 5: In Case of Data Loss, Back It Up!
System failures, ransomware attacks, and stolen devices pose severe risks to companies’ ability to operate normally. For this reason, any business must implement a thorough data backup strategy to safeguard information and guarantee that it can always be accessed.
As part of a solid data backup strategy, it is imperative to routinely backup the data for your business. To add to that, ensure your backup environment is safe, whether hosted in the cloud or some other offsite storage facility.
Data backup is not the same as data archiving. As a rule of thumb, backups should only be kept for a short period in an emergency, but archives should be maintained indefinitely.
Top 6: Take Advantage of Real-Time Tracking
In a world where more and more operations are conducted remotely and, in the cloud, it might be challenging to ensure data privacy. It means businesses must be cautious about where their data is stored offsite, who has access to it and at what times.
Controlling and managing sensitive data requires security teams to implement SIEM (security information and event monitoring) solutions that operate in real-time. The alerts of a trustworthy SIEM service will be triggered when the rules you’ve defined for data access are broken.
Top 7: Reduce the Size of Your Data Set
Businesses often gather and store far more information than they require. The great majority of data, in reality, is never produced. It’s important to remember that data that sits unused in storage systems might become a liability.
That’s why it’s essential to inspect and evaluate data for relevance and utility regularly. Simplifying your infrastructure and eliminating extraneous data can help you save space, cut expenses, and make your business less vulnerable to attacks.
Top 8: Evaluate Your Methods of Authentication
The majority of companies today are undergoing some sort of digital transformation and increasingly relying on proprietary software. However, many apps still rely on inefficient and archaic authentication methods that can frustrate users. Workers typically ignore or turn them off, leaving their apps vulnerable to attack.
A crucial aspect of protecting sensitive information is authentication. Privacy-sensitive software must be readily available, quickly accessible, and reliably used. It means you should evaluate your current authentication processes and seek ways to make them more secure or efficient.
Top 9: Merge the Security and Development Groups
Businesses have been uptick that has integrated data security into their software lifecycles by eliminating the walls that once separated security and development departments.
Instead of waiting until the end to conduct tests, this approach encourages continuous testing throughout development. It’s a fantastic method for bolstering application security and avoiding introducing vulnerabilities during the production phase.
Conclusion
In the digital era, robust data privacy practices are essential for enterprises dealing with vast amounts of data amidst growing cybersecurity threats. Recognizing data assets, implementing solid data management plans, and employing encryption are pivotal steps towards safeguarding sensitive information.
However, navigating the complexities of data privacy requires more than just a good strategy; it requires the right partner. Sertainty’s data privacy platform offers tailored solutions that address the unique challenges of your organization.
By partnering with Sertainty, you can enhance your data privacy efforts, ensuring compliance and maintaining stakeholder trust. Contact Sertainty today to discover how we can help you succeed in the critical task of data protection.
FAQs
What is Data Privacy and Why is it Important?
Data privacy refers to the practice of handling data—personal or otherwise—in a manner that respects confidentiality and ensures that information is not misused or improperly accessed. It is crucial for protecting individuals’ personal information from breaches and identity theft, and for maintaining trust in digital platforms.
How Can I Protect My Personal Information Online?
To protect your personal information online, use strong, unique passwords for different accounts and enable two-factor authentication where available. Be cautious about the information you share on social media and always review the privacy settings on your accounts to control who can see your information.
What Are the Best Practices for Data Encryption?
Best practices for data encryption include using strong encryption methods for storing and transmitting data, such as AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) for data in transit. Regularly update encryption keys and ensure that only authorized individuals have access to them.
How Should I Handle Data Collection and Sharing?
When collecting data, only gather what is necessary, and be transparent with users about what you’re collecting and why. Obtain explicit consent from individuals before collecting their data, and ensure you have secure measures in place to protect it. Be cautious when sharing data with third parties and confirm they adhere to similar privacy standards.
What Steps Should I Take If My Data Privacy is Breached?
If you suspect your data privacy has been breached, immediately change your passwords and report the breach to the relevant authorities, such as your bank or the website where the breach occurred. Monitor your accounts for any unusual activity and consider using credit monitoring services to alert you of potential fraud.