Cybersecurity is one of the modern world’s most urgent issues. Yet, board conversations about security breaches, their costs and consequences are seldom had. As a result, these security breaches keep happening.
At Assertiv, we specialize in identity and access management. In this blog, we’ll be sharing with you 5 ways your business can prevent digital security breaches.
WHY CARE ABOUT DIGITAL SECURITY BREACHES?
According to the Ponemon Institutes 2017 study, it takes an organization on average 191 days to pick up on a digital security breach. This means that your data and systems are compromised for up to 6 months before any remediation can begin. Because many businesses hold confidential health and finance information for many individuals, this is a major issue.
Digital security breaches come with many hidden costs and consequences. They can have a ripple effect of negative impacts on a business for as many as 5 years post the security incident. The impacts are not only financial. The aftermath of a digital security breach comprises of decreased customer trust and loyalty, a negative trade name reputation, operational disruption and intellectual property loss in addition to the loss of revenue.
5 WAYS TO PREVENT DIGITAL SECURITY BREACHES
So, let’s look at 5 proven ways to best protect your organization.
#1 PASSWORD ACCESS MANAGEMENT
If your business lacks the structure to effectively manage your users’ password access, it’s difficult to prevent the damage that arises from both external security attacks and insider negligence.
The use of weak passwords, for example, is one of the main culprits of data breaches. This is followed by passwords that are stored unsafely. These instances make easy work for hackers to access your business information.
Assertiv provides a comprehensive identity and access management platform that makes password access management seamless. The single sign-on feature means your users need to remember only one set of credentials, to access the applications and software they need. This is considerably more secure than maintaining individual logins for every system your organization uses.
#2 LIMIT ACCESS TO VALUABLE DATA
Statistics have shown countless times that the percentage of users with access to software, applications and files they do not need is significant. When dealing with access permissions, the principle of least privilege is a good principle to go by. It involves allowing a user only those privileges which are essential to perform their intended function.
With Assertiv, user permissions can be easily set up based on roles within your organization. Not only does this prevent security breaches, but it saves a lot of onboarding time by automating an otherwise long manual process.
Assertiv is the easy, economical and efficient way to manage your user permissions. You can access your applications from anywhere, anytime, and edit with a few clicks of a button.
#3 ACCESS REVIEWS
Reviewing your user accesses across your organization regularly is key to preventing digital security breaches. With employees coming on board, leaving and moving between departments, it’s a good idea to review their access levels. This ensures sensitive information can’t be accidentally distributed.
Access reviews are also a good opportunity to revisit your role/department access permissions to check that they are still in line with the principle of least privilege.
#4 CONSIDER A SAAS SOLUTION
It is important to ensure that you keep your applications, software and systems up to date. A SaaS (Software as a Service) solution like Assertiv manages all updates and patches for you. As a result, can have total peace of mind knowing your business is making use of the most up to date, secure version of the software you use.
Where you are unable to use a SaaS, it pays to take a proactive approach to the updating of the software you run. Vulnerability to security breaches is at an all-time high when your systems are out of date. You need to install network patches as and when they become available to keep your network free from security holes.
#5 ONGOING STAFF TRAINING
It’s no secret that the root cause behind most data security incidents is individuals who are none the wiser. These well-meaning individuals may share a password, click on a dodgy link or lose their access device without realizing the digital security implications.
If you want to safeguard your valuable business data, schedule regular and ongoing staff training. Training can be in the form of monthly or quarterly meetings in which you build awareness about the importance of digital security
FINAL WORDS
Even with all precautionary measures in place, 100% protection from any form of a data security breach is impossible. There is always the risk. But you can significantly decrease the risk through effective identity and access management.
The ‘it’ll never happen to us’ mentality, or the perception that a security breach is something that can be easily remediated both hold many fallacies.
Taking the steps listed in this article is a good way to protect your organization from a digital security breach. Further to this, partnering with a trusted IAM solution provider makes it quick, easy and effective. For a secure, simple way of managing access to your organization’s digital tools, while preventing security breaches, try Assertiv for free today.
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