Check out three steps to protect your company data

For the NSA, the Snowden case was a data breach in terms of unprecedented proportions. But how he did it? How can a contractor to have access to so much information?

The world is in an interesting place to work with IT security, according to Trend Micro, a specialist in security solutions in the cloud era now. Edward Snowden case taught many lessons on how companies should protect their data and many discussions on the monitoring aspects of these issues have happened. But the picture is more complex if we consider all aspects of this issue from the perspective of the NSA (National Security Agency of the USA).

For the NSA, the Snowden case was a data breach in terms of unprecedented proportions. Everything indicates that the systems analyst was able to extract a significant amount of sensitive data; what has been published so far represents a relatively small part of what he was able to access. Importantly Snowden was technically not an employee of the CIA – was just a contractor. How did he do it? How can a contractor to have access to so much information?

Some companies may think “if this can happen to a spy agency, so there’s nothing we can do We should give up trying to protect our data “. Others may say, “Let’s build the largest data around our barriers”. Both approaches are incorrect. There are three simple steps that can help companies design their defense strategies:

1. Stagger the priorities of the data being protected. Obviously, you need to protect data. However, companies should not try to protect everything with the same rigor. The company needs to focus on protection of what really needs to be protected. Which data sets, if stolen, can ruin a business? These are trade secrets? Or maybe customer data?

This will differ for each company – which is vital for an organization can be trivial to another. Each organization should make decisions according to their particularities. Some examples of what a company can consider essential data would be: trade secrets, research and development documents and information partners. Each of these items can represent millions of dollars in losses, not only in monetary terms but also in safety and confidence too.

2. Enhance protection of your important data. Once the essential data were selected and identified, the next step is: defend them strongly. How? This will depend on what data are, how they are stored and who need to access them. It’s something that can be locked in a vault and kept offline for years, or is it something that needs to be accessed on a daily basis? For each organization will be different challenges, as well as solutions.

3. Guide employees. Another important component in security can not be forgotten: the end users. As hard as it may seem, the end users should be educated not to fall into simple strokes. Examples include: “If the manager asks you for your user credentials and password, maybe you should request new credentials If you receive an email that seems too good to be true, do not click it”.

In short, it is a combination of identifying what is most important, implement the right technologies, and educate users. It is all work – not just for professionals responsible for IT – ensuring that business critical data remain remain safe.

Source: www.administradores.com.br

Comments are closed.