Cybercriminals that are able to successfully execute a data breach on an organization can be the biggest threat to its business continuity.
Evolving compliance policies globally and customers becoming more aware of their right to privacy have made it mandatory for organizations to secure their data from severe data threats and risks. As the modern threat landscape has evolved tremendously, and cybercriminals are primarily targeting data because it is one of the most lucrative revenue-generating models for them. Modern enterprises need to have a thorough understanding of their data security threats to implement proactive measures to minimize the impact of data breaches. Data security should be one of the top priorities of CDOs and CISOs. Following are a few biggest data threats that can potentially harm brand images, and can have legal litigations resulting in huge financial losses:
Lack of data security awareness in the workforce
Modern enterprises are exploring opportunities to democratize data to ensure efficient data management strategies throughout the enterprise. Democratizing data with all the resources exposes it to various threats. Because one of the most significant threats to data security is the internal workforce, internal threats, intentionally or unintentionally, can expose the organization’s data to various cyber threats and risks. Lack of data security awareness in employees can have devastating impacts on business continuity. Cybercriminals leverage phishing attacks as a vector to lure the employee into giving in the required information to these malicious actors voluntarily. CISOs can make of the cybersecurity awareness month’s theme “see yourself in cyber” to educate their employees on how to identify potential phishing attacks through phone, email, or other social media channels and notify the SecOps teams to mitigate the threat. Enterprises can design and enforce stringent password management policies to reduce the risks of being compromised. Leveraging encryption tools enables organizations to secure sensitive data shared on the business network and emails.
Also Read: Strengthening Cybersecurity Posture after Successful Cloud Migration
Patch management gaps
The enterprise IT infrastructure has multiple unsecured devices on the network, including routers, servers, firmware, and printers that they use to streamline daily operations. These tools do not have the capability to secure themselves and hence become an easy target for cybercriminals to compromise and infiltrate the business network with ease. Such devices lack a patch for known vulnerabilities because the patch was not developed or deployed. Moreover, the hardware is not able to upgrade the patch even after the vulnerability was discovered. Organizations that have such vulnerable devices in their business network can offer easy access to their IT infrastructure and enable the attackers to move laterally in the network to steal sensitive data. Data security is more than just securing the data against cyber criminals. For modern enterprises that aim to be completely secure, CISOs need to ensure they have a strategic cyber security posture to secure network devices.
Attracting, hiring, and retaining a skilled data security workforce
Another significant threat to data security is the lack of skilled resources and tech stack to keep the IT infrastructure secure.
Also Read: Managed Service Provider’s (MSP) Role in Defending the Organization’s IT Infrastructure
Many organizations fail to attract, hire and retain talent that is skilled in gathering, processing, and storing data securely throughout the organization. As cyber attackers are becoming more sophisticated, enterprises need the right talent and data security tech stack to combat all the present and future threats to their sensitive data. Organizations that are unable to hire skilled resources can upskill the existing workforce to strengthen their security approach to secure their sensitive data.
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