Data privacy breaches can be a serious problem for any business. Sensitive, confidential data about your clients, company and personal information can be exposed and fall into the wrong hands. Hackers target all types of databases including healthcare facilities, websites, government operations and more to steal encrypted information.
January, 28th is Data Privacy Day. In order to raise awareness, CNA Insurance has written how to minimize a risk of a data breach; you can read the whole article here here. A few of the important important steps are as follows:
Educate your staff on the causes of a data breach and explain what can happen.
Don’t make it easy to find private data. When it is entered, make sure it is don’t in a secure way.
Do not share or write down passwords.
By keeping a password secret, there is less of a risk someone can break into the database.
Change passwords frequently.
By updating this security frequently, hackers have a harder time at finding out how to get in to a database.
Secure all devices in a safe place.
By locking your computes, tablets, smartphones, ect, and securing them in a safe place, you can limits a hackers accessibility to these devices.
Know where your data is stored and use the proper encryption methods.
When saving data, make sure it is properly stored and securely encrypted. Don’t leave sensitive information in a file that is easy to find.
If all these fail, have a response plan ready.
No one is immune to a data breach, so it’s best to be prepared. Create a response plan to quickly shut down any cyber attack and notify everyone involved in the unfortunate event data privacy is compromised.
None of these tips are 100% in blocking a privacy breach but will help protect against data being stolen. Most hackers are looking for private information such as social security numbers, credit card information, banking information, names, address, phone numbers and other sensitive information. The more you know, the better you can protect yourself.
