Data Privacy Day is observed on January 28 all around the world. Sensitising people and spreading information about privacy practices and principles are the day's goals. In order to foster a culture of privacy, it encourages everyone to take ownership of their privacy obligations.
This year's theme is ‘Privacy Matters.’ It fosters a sense of responsibility by demonstrating the importance of privacy for both individuals and organisations. But more so for the latter as businesses hold several datasets. It is important for them to understand data risks and always be a step ahead of any potentially malicious activity.
Here are the top five data risks every organisation should be aware of:
Loss of data
A data-centric strategy is necessary to keep pace with innovation, data accessibility, and compliance monitoring, along with data loss protection. In order to protect and maintain the privacy of a business's most valuable resource, data loss prevention (DLP) is essential. By using this method, data owners and security teams can safely recommend DLP within their organisation.
Inadequate knowledge of data loss
The biggest threat to the cloud security of a business may be data leaks. A growing number of firms are discovering that their cloud computing capabilities are vulnerable to reputational and financial penalties arising from the regulatory and legal fallout that follows data breaches.
Insider threats
Protecting the perimeter is insufficient because the real threat can be lurking within the organisation. Businesses need to pay close attention to anyone who has access to their internal information, including partners, employees, third parties, and others. It's crucial to ensure that they won't abuse their access rights because they have access to your company's trade secrets and could have an impact on your operations.
Social engineering vulnerabilities
Luring employees into disclosing credentials or downloading malware is a relatively typical method for data breaches. Every employee needs to learn how to recognise phishing, malware, and other social engineering problems. IT must keep up with current trends, watch out for targeted assaults, and ensure that staff members are informed about what to look for and how to respond.
Ransomware attacks
Ransomware attacks are among the few cyber threats that receive a lot of public attention and general concern. Small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs), as well as local governments, are targets of these more common and expensive online cash grabs, which are driving up the number of these cyber threats. Additionally, many ransomware threats occur at the user level because phishing techniques and other harmful communications enable these major cyber threats.
Cyber risks are also shifting as businesses move toward a digital strategy while balancing a hybrid work structure and pushing every aspect of their operations to the cloud. As per recent reports, cyber threats are growing, spilling into the mainstream.
The year 2023 will see leading organisations investing heavily in updating or establishing more robust cybersecurity policies and procedures, monitoring attack surfaces, and enabling security automation. They will team up with incident response, digital forensics, and data restoration groups to proactively identify and eliminate threats in networks, reduce the attack surface, close security breaches, and recover critical data.
