Uncovering Cyber Threats: Protecting Your Data
By Tom Seest
Is Your Data At Risk With Cybersecurity Compromise?
At BestCybersecurityNews, we help entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, young learners, and seniors learn more about cybersecurity.
Data compromise refers to any unauthorized access or theft of sensitive information like credit card numbers, bank account info, protected health data and personally identifiable information (PII). It could be as straightforward as a doctor looking at a patient’s chart accidentally or as complex as a national government computer system hack.
Is Your Data At Risk With Cybersecurity Compromise?
Table Of Contents
What Are the Dangers of Data Compromise?
Data compromise in cybersecurity refers to any unauthorized access or theft of sensitive information. This could range from an accidental email being sent to the wrong person to more serious scenarios such as hackers gaining control of personal data like Social Security numbers and banking details.
Data breaches pose a grave danger to organizations, their customers, and the general public, as well as to the company itself. They can lead to numerous issues for the business, including fines, litigation, and reputational damage.
Data compromise can take many forms, but the three most prevalent are phishing, malware, and ransomware. These attacks may come from external attackers or internal employees with specific objectives and access to your system.
Phishing attacks involve criminals creating malicious emails that appear legitimate from a legitimate source, then employing social engineering techniques to convince their intended readers to reveal their login and password information.
Other types of data compromise include employee error or negligence. This could include leaving a database with sensitive information online or allowing employees to download programs that could be infected with viruses and malware, giving cybercriminals unauthorized access to your company’s network.
Another type of data compromise involves third-party vendors. These individuals have access to sensitive information and can steal it or resell it on the dark web.
Hackers may take advantage of software flaws to gain access to a company’s systems and networks. They could target the most valuable IT systems, stealing credentials for those machines.
It’s hard to imagine a bigger data breach than the one experienced in 2013, when cybercriminals stole the information of all three billion Yahoo users. This breach sparked multiple lawsuits against Yahoo and resulted in millions of dollars worth of legal settlements for them.
Cybercriminals are constantly devising new techniques to break into businesses and steal their data, but a 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report identified nine “patterns” they typically follow year-over-year. These patterns largely remain constant, accounting for 88 percent of breaches in that period.
What Are the Dangers of Data Compromise?
Who is Behind Intentional Data Breaches?
Data breaches occur when an unauthorized individual gains access to or steals sensitive information. This can occur due to cyberattacks or employee negligence. Organizations that experience a data breach may face severe repercussions, including fines and reputational harm.
Intentional data breaches refer to incidents that are done with the deliberate intent to breach a company’s systems or personal information. These attacks can be carried out by malicious hackers or employees attempting to pilfer information for financial gain.
Malicious hackers often target organizations through the use of malware or botnets, programs designed to infiltrate computer systems and steal data. They may be embedded into emails, websites, and online ads in an effort to search for passwords and sensitive files which can then be sent back to the attackers.
Social engineering can also be employed to manipulate employees and get them to share sensitive information that should not be. For instance, fraudsters may persuade employees to provide access to a sensitive file or help them circumvent security measures.
Another common method for data theft is physical theft of devices containing the company’s information. These can include laptops, desktops, tablets, hard drives, thumb drives, CD & DVDs or even servers.
Data breaches cannot be completely avoided, but you can reduce their likelihood by employing sound practices. These include vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, training and awareness for staff.
Forensic tools and forensic experts can be employed to collect and analyze the affected systems, software, and hardware. Doing so provides a detailed picture of what occurred, as well as how to remediate it.
Furthermore, effective access management solutions can deter users from gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data. This could be achieved by restricting permissions only to those with a genuine need-to-know basis or compartmentalizing the information so it becomes harder for any one individual to view.
Data compromise, whether deliberate or accidental, can have devastating effects on an organization’s reputation, finances and customers. It could also lead to costly lawsuits and regulatory investigations.
Who is Behind Intentional Data Breaches?
How Can Malicious Insiders Compromise Your Data?
Malicious insiders are an especially dangerous type of threat and difficult to detect. Usually, they’re a disgruntled employee seeking revenge or some way to exact revenge against a company that has wronged them.
These malicious insiders may use phishing attacks to gain access to an organization’s sensitive data. With their privileged position, they could also utilize this access for personal gain or damage the company.
To identify malicious insiders, the best approach is to use data discovery tools that uncover all sensitive information an organization possesses – from networks and endpoint devices to cloud services and email accounts. With this insight, you can monitor and detect suspicious activity across a variety of sources so that you can take prompt action before an actual attack takes place.
Insider threats often target departing or ex-employees, but current employees may also be targeted. These individuals often have revenge motives such as being passed over for a promotion or feeling underappreciated by their employers.
This can have devastating results, from theft of sensitive information to disrupting business processes or even destroying critical systems. Recently, an ex-employee used a fake account to edit shipping records at his former employer and delay delivery of crucial personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies for healthcare workers fighting COVID-19 in March 2020.
To prevent such attacks, it’s essential that all users possess the required training, credentials and authorization. Furthermore, making sure everyone’s antivirus software is up-to-date and firewall settings are configured properly can help safeguard against such an attack.
Aside from these proactive measures, it’s also essential to guarantee employees don’t access their work environment outside of normal working hours or vacations. Remote work and an increasingly divisive political climate make it difficult to monitor all employees, but observing unusual access times could indicate an attacker is trying to gain access to your systems or data.
Malicious insiders may include disgruntled employees, moles or those working with external groups that possess sensitive information. Examples include suppliers, contractors, partners or other third-parties with a direct link to the company.
How Can Malicious Insiders Compromise Your Data?
Is Your Data at Risk of Being Stolen?
Physical theft of data, devices, and confidential paperwork is not only a serious threat to cybersecurity professionals but is often the root cause of many breaches. These crimes may involve taking advantage of those with access to laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones, or other electronic devices that contain sensitive information.
Theft of a device can be an easy way for hackers to gain access to an organization’s data and obtain files and information necessary for their malicious activities. They could then use that stolen info to steal credit card numbers, or worse still, breach someone’s identity and commit fraudulence.
Fortunately, many of the same strategies used to protect an organization’s systems and networks can also protect its physical assets. These include strong firewalls, intrusion prevention systems (IPS units), data loss prevention software (DLP software), and other logical security solutions.
Unfortunately, however, these solutions cannot always protect an organization’s physical property from threats outside its network. That is why it is so essential to integrate physical security and cybersecurity measures.
A porous physical security system can allow criminals to break into facilities, access your network and potentially compromise your data. This is particularly true in the healthcare sector where loss or mishandling of electronic devices and paper documents containing sensitive information has been linked to over 70% of data breaches.
Installing locks on entrances and monitoring movements at those entrances are both wise ideas to prevent thieves from breaking into your building and taking advantage of any valuable items you may have left unsecured. This helps guard against theft and ensures the security of all valuables within.
Furthermore, training employees on proper handling and disposal of important documents is a wise idea. Proper employee education as well as document control and destruction processes can reduce the likelihood of physical theft leading to data breaches.
Another major source of physical theft occurs when employees mishandle sensitive information or improperly dispose of company property. These errors, whether intentional or not, can lead to data breaches.
These errors can be avoided by properly training staff on how to safely handle and dispose of sensitive information, installing access controls at entrances, and monitoring movement there. Furthermore, it’s beneficial to integrate physical security with cybersecurity so that the same safeguards in place for sensitive data also extend protections for physical property.
Is Your Data at Risk of Being Stolen?
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