What is Data Protection? Policies & Strategies to Protect Data

What is Data Protection?

Data protection is about safeguarding sensitive information against potential damage, loss, or corruption. This has become increasingly important as the volume of data collected and stored continues to rise. Likewise, data protection is becoming more intricate with the addition of new devices to monitor and protect such as wearable technology, industrial machines, and IoT devices.

Why Data Protection is Important

Data protection is of paramount importance in today’s digital age for several compelling reasons. First and foremost, it safeguards individuals’ privacy and personal information. With the increasing amount of data being collected and stored by organizations, including sensitive details like financial records and medical history, robust data protection measures are necessary to prevent unauthorized access or misuse. This ensures that individuals maintain control over their personal information and mitigates the risk of identity theft or fraud.

Furthermore, data protection fosters trust between businesses and their customers. When organizations prioritize the security of customer data, they demonstrate a commitment to safeguarding their customers’ interests, which enhances their reputation and strengthens customer relationships. This, in turn, leads to increased customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Moreover, data protection is crucial for maintaining the integrity and competitiveness of businesses. By safeguarding trade secrets, proprietary information, and intellectual property, organizations can prevent industrial espionage and maintain their competitive advantage. Additionally, compliance with data protection regulations and frameworks is essential to avoid legal repercussions, hefty fines, and reputational damage.

Data Protection Strategies and Policies

Data protection techniques are used to safeguard information, ensure confidentiality, eliminate the risk of data destruction and tampering, while also avoiding the compromise of data integrity for the sake of analysis and assessment. Efficient techniques require embedding cybersecurity technologies and practices into daily workflows. Several data protection measures include:

Evaluation of sensitive information

Prior to implementing data protection measures, it is imperative to conduct an assessment of all data you store. This entails identifying the various data sources, types, and storage infrastructure used across the organization. Data should be classified based on its sensitivity level, and you will need to evaluate the effectiveness of your existing security controls.

Conduct internal and external risk assessments

Regular risk assessments should be carried out by the organization’s security team, focusing on both internal and external risks. Your data protection measures should be aligned with the identified risks. Internal risks may originate from configuration or security policy errors, weak passwords, or unrestricted access to critical systems and data. External risks include social engineering tactics such as phishing, malware distribution, SQL injection or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit

Encryption is a process that converts plain text or data into a coded form to prevent unauthorized access, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and compliance. It provides a secure way to store and transmit sensitive data, protecting it from breaches and unauthorized access. All sensitive data should be encrypted, both at rest and in transit.

Securely erase sensitive data

When you need to delete sensitive data, it is not enough to simply put it in your Recycle Bin, as adversaries may find a way to retrieve it. Data can be erased securely through various methods, some of which are listed below:

Overwriting: Data is overwritten with random or meaningless data multiple times, making it impossible to recover the original data.

Physical destruction: This involves physically destroying the storage media that contains the data, and may include shredding, pulverizing or melting.

Encryption: Encrypting the data renders it useless without the encryption key, so the data can be considered secure if the key has been properly disposed of.

Data wiping utilities: There are various software applications that can be used to wipe the data from storage devices securely

Magnetic degaussing: This method involves exposing the storage media to a strong magnetic field, which erases the data completely.

Restrict access to sensitive data

Controlling access to sensitive data can keep it secure by limiting the number of individuals who can access the data. By limiting access, the data is less likely to be accidentally or intentionally compromised. Access can be controlled through measures such as user authentication, access permissions, and encryption.

Monitoring access to sensitive data

Monitoring access to sensitive data helps to keep it secure by allowing organizations to:

Detect and prevent unauthorized access: Monitoring access to sensitive data can help organizations determine who has access to sensitive data, and ensure that only authorized personnel have access to it. Regular monitoring can also ensure that access privileges are updated or revoked when an employee changes roles or leaves the company.

Track user activity: Monitoring access allows organizations to track user activity, including who accessed the data, when and for what purpose. This information can be used to investigate any suspicious activity, track the flow of data, and identify potential security breaches.

Respond to security incidents: Monitoring access to sensitive data is a crucial part of an organization’s incident response plan. IT teams can quickly identify and respond to security incidents, such as data breaches or cyber attacks, by reviewing access logs and taking appropriate action to contain the threat.

How Lepide Helps with Data Protection

The Lepide Data Security Platform will gather event data from various platforms including Active Directory, Office 365, Dropbox, Amazon S3, G Suite, and more. Via a user-friendly dashboard, you can keep an eye on changes made to your sensitive information and receive real-time notifications for any unusual activities. Additionally, the data classification feature will scan your repositories for sensitive data, and classify it accordingly. It can also classify data at the point of creation or modification. With a clear understanding of the location of your sensitive data, you can establish access controls in a more informed manner. You can generate reports in just a few clicks and share them with the relevant authorities to demonstrate compliance. The Lepide software uses machine learning models to analyze user activity and build a baseline against which anomalies can be identified. It can also detect and respond to events that match a pre-defined threshold condition.

If you’d like to see how the Lepide Data Security Platform can help to protect your critical assets, schedule a demo with one of our engineers.