Companies can avert data-loss blunders
Tens of millions of individuals have received letters this year telling them that their personal data has been lost or stolen.
Yet most incidents would not happen if companies implemented proper security practices, says Gartner research vice-president Rich Mogull. Causes included lost laptops, misplaced back-up tapes and e-mails with sensitive information sent accidentally.
Mogull has identified five steps companies should take to prevent information reaching the wrong hands and forcing an embarrassing public confession.
Use content monitoring and filtering tools to monitor all outbound network traffic. The tools monitor e-mail, instant messaging, file transfers and web mail and generate alerts and stop activities that violate policy.
Encrypt back-up tapes and mass storage. New tools significantly improve manageability and simplicity of encryption.
Secure workstations, restrict home computers and lock portable data storage. Poorly configured workstations and laptops are a major source of loss, especially when they are compromised by a virus, or when portable memory sticks are lost.
Encrypt laptops. Employees will store sensitive data on their laptops, regardless of company policies. Encryption is the only tool to protect sensitive information on a lost laptop, Mogull says. He recommends “whole-drive encryption” rather than file and folder encryption. That will protect all the data, and will resist hacker recovery techniques that skirt the protections of passwords or other controls.
Use database activity monitoring. Most organisations struggle to secure their databases, which are rarely designed with effective security. Companies will need to encrypt some of the data, but activity monitoring is a powerful control that is easier to implement and more workable than encryption for some data.
The tools monitor all activity within a database and generate instant alerts for unusual activity. Detecting unusual behaviour can limit misuse by insiders and fend off some external attacks.
Inet-Bridge
Loading ...