Leakage Protection in Business: How to Prevent and How to Fight

One of the company’s worst nightmares is data breaches. This is not only multi-million dollar losses, but also customer churn and lawsuits.

If a team member leaves, taking a database of buyers with him, he may simply lure them over to competitors. And if another company became aware of internal developments, they may be the first to release an edgy product and win all the profits.

Let’s figure out how to keep calm and prevent data leaks.

Why is it so important?

Most small businesses think they don’t need data leakage protection. They are confident that a non-disclosure agreement and mail passwords will save them from all troubles.

There is a glimmer of hope that the small business won’t be of interest to thieves. And when hope evaporates and data is stolen, it’s too late to do something.

So why is protection important?

1. Due to leakage, the profit can go to your competitors

The most common scenario on the market is that attackers break into CRM and gain access to the customer database. Then they make a website exactly like yours and register a similar email address. And then they send customers an offer that cannot be refused: for example, a letter informing them of 60% discounts. Your customers go to the site and pay for the goods, thinking they are buying from you. Attackers make profits, customers lose money, and you are drowned in negativity.

2. Elimination of the consequences is very expensive

Data breach costs reached $4.24 million in 2021, according to an IBM report. This is the highest average total cost over the past 17 years. Is the neglect of the safety of such victims worth it?

3. Database hacking has become more common 

More than ever, companies are facing vulnerabilities in their systems today. There were 1,767 publicly reported breaches in the first six months of 2021.

4. You can lose trust as the company

In addition to the reasons stated above, failure to provide security can also lead to loss of customer confidence and reputational damage.

Prevention is our everything. After achieving real-time customer intelligence, it is worth taking care of competent protection against data leaks that will help prevent negative consequences that can seriously affect your customers and reputation. 

How to prevent internal data leakage?

Internal data breaches are when your employees leak information to competitors or take customer databases or other data with them when they leave. There are several ways to protect yourself from such unscrupulous workers.

• Use NDA. First, you need to introduce a regime for protecting commercial secrets and clearly state what relates to such information. And in the contract, stipulate the responsibility for the violation. No one wants to drag around the courts and pay millions of dollars in compensation for throwing off some data to competitors.
• Install DLP system. This is special software that monitors attempts to transmit information to outsiders. A program is installed on the corporate server and all devices in the office, which checks all transactions in real-time and blocks suspicious ones.
• Differentiate access. One of the easiest ways to secure valuable information is to differentiate access to data and give employees only what they need to work. For example, to transfer not the entire database to the manager, but only the contacts of the clients he leads.
• Provide good motivation. Another easy way to protect a company’s business data is to motivate employees to do their jobs. No matter what: salary, bonuses, comfortable working conditions, promising career growth. If employees are fully committed to your company, they won’t have the thought of harming it.

These defenses work better when used in combination. Now let’s talk about external threats.

Preventing external leakage

• Set strong passwords. This is the simplest solution and is often missed.
• Use corporate email. Free email agents are great, but they are not suitable for dealing with sensitive business data. They can be easily hacked, especially if a good specialist does it.
• Shred documents. Permanently delete unnecessary documents from servers. And if you work with paper documents containing valuable information, do not skimp on a shredder. However, sometimes it’s better to have an expert do it, searching for secure paper shredding in San Diego or near me is a good idea.
• Think about firewalls. You can talk about them for a long time. In short, they are needed by those who store important information online. Among these are traffic control systems, WAF, firewalls.
• Use IRM. This is the containerization of each document containing information that is valuable to you.
• Encrypt disks on workers’ laptops and tablets. It will be impossible to use the device without special access keys – even if it is stolen, all data will be reliably protected.

As you may have guessed, it is better to use complex solutions. For data loss protection to work, simply setting a strong password is not enough. Do not skimp on reliable solutions: it is better to pay for protection right away than to pay later for courts and compensations.