Both businesses and individual people can find themselves at risk of suffering from data breaches. By knowing some of the most common causes, you put yourself in the best position to fully understand where the issues are coming from, and you can also defend against them as well. Even if you are already well protected, it is still interesting to fully understand where the main risks are lying. So, here are the most common causes of data breaches.
Criminal Hacking
Right at the top of the list of data breaches is criminal hacking. If you are looking to stop data breaches, you are going to need to make it very hard indeed for people with nefarious intentions to be able to access your files. Criminal hacking encompasses a wide variety of activities, from phishing emails to simply guessing passwords and everything in between. Sometimes, the hacks are sophisticated and complicated. On other occasions, they are as crude as you can possibly imagine. Of course, there are plenty of tools out there that can stop you from falling victim to criminal hacking, such as source code security platforms and using password managers to ensure that you have unique passwords for every login.
Human Error
While it accounts for around half of the number of breaches as criminal hacking, this is still a significant figure and one that would be much better if it was brought down as low as possible. The best way that you are going to be able to protect against human error is through knowledge alone. Therefore, if you run a business, it is highly important that all of your staff members are well-trained and fully experienced in what they have to deal with on a regular basis. This training should be kept updated as threats evolve and change over time.
Malware
Next up on the list is the issue of malware, which can be built in a range of different varieties, from ransomware to RAM scrapers. A big percentage of these can be kept out with the right combination of antivirus software and a firewall. Again, they can be quite sophisticated, or they can be crudely built. Either way, they can be potentially disastrous to an organization, and it is highly important that you are in a position to defend yourself against them. In addition, out-of-band authentication benefits are significant in enhancing the overall security of your devices and networks. It provides an additional layer of defense by ensuring secure verification methods, reducing the risk of malware compromising your security measures.
Unauthorized Use of Information
Beyond mistakes that are made by staff members, there are also those who access information in an improper manner and use the data in an unauthorized way. Therefore, it is highly important that you put yourself in a situation that you hire the best and most reputable people for the job. A big part of this involves carefully vetting who you are going to hire and making sure that you check all necessary references along the way as well. Just these few small actions can make such a big difference to preventing data breaches from being an issue at your company. By preventing data breaches, you can help to ensure that your business or personal life remains unaffected by the digital world.
