It is undeniable that in this 4.0 era where everything is digital, data is transformed into a very important and valuable asset for every business, including for other people who are not responsible. Weak data protection is a serious threat to every company. Even weak data protection will result in data leakage for the company. In addition to operational losses, this data leak has a negative impact on the company’s image as a whole, especially if there is user data.
There are no laws and regulations that specifically regulate the protection of personal data, including those related to sanctions for those who misuse it. Data leaks are currently increasingly worrying, the increasingly massive use of the internet and weak data protection are the reasons why data leaks are growing. Nothing can guarantee the security of the system, therefore actions to anticipate and respond to data leaks are things that must be prepared.
Data Leak Sources
There are always loopholes for leaked data from systems that have been built in such a way. Whether it’s due to user negligence, poor technological design, to writing vulnerable program code. There is always a path to crimes that result in a data leak.
The most common human error that can lead to data leakage, usually involves choosing a weak password. Choosing passwords for company accounts is a very important education and must be carried out in every line of business. In addition to human negligence, there are other negligence, namely negligence in management. This negligence in management is usually about anyone and from anywhere who can access company data. These restrictions are very important to ensure that important company data can only be accessed by authorized people. The next omission that can allow company data to be leaked is in the choice of technology, including how the developers or programmers write their code. The code must be tested not only for its functionality, but also for how secure the code is.
Data Leak Cases
Data reported by KompasTekno, one of the data leak cases that occurred in Indonesia in September 2020 was data on a number of users of the cashback rewards platform as well as an e-commerce curator from Singapore, ShopBack. In an official statement shared by ShopBack, they admit that they found illegal access to a system that contains user data. Affected data includes name, GPS location, contact information, gender, date of birth, to account numbers for users who claim cashback to account numbers. However, at that time ShopBack ensured that important user information such as passwords were still safe and protected through encryption. Credit card data is also not stored in the ShopBack system. However, ShopBack still encourages its users to change their password and distinguish their new password from other applications for account security.
That is why data security is very important for every company. Because it cannot be ascertained that the security system can prevent data leakage. There must always be loopholes for people who are not responsible for misusing data.
How to Anticipate Data Leaks
Data leaks can happen to anyone, any company has the same risk of being affected by a data leak. Here are a number of ways to anticipate and reduce the risk of data leakage.
Granting Access to Intelligence to the Security Operations Center (SOC) team
Security Operations Center (SOC) teams in enterprises should be provided access to the latest threat intelligence, and stay abreast of new, emerging tools, techniques and tactics used by threat actors and cybercriminals.
Implementing EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) Solutions
In anticipating data leaks, companies can detect endpoint levels, investigate and remediate incidents in a timely manner, so companies must implement EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) solutions.
Enterprise Grade Security Solutions
To anticipate or prevent data leakage, companies must improve their data security systems. This enterprise data security solution will prevent data misuse caused by data leaks.
Conduct Training for Employees on Cyber Security
In the explanation above, it has been explained that some cases of data leakage can be caused by human negligence. Therefore, to anticipate data leaks, companies can do this method. Companies can provide training to their employees on the basics of cybersecurity. For example, not to open or save files from unknown e-mails or websites as they can harm the entire company.
Reminding Employees To Handle Important Data
This can be an anticipation for employees in handling important company data. For example, to store company data only in trusted cloud services with authentication enabled, do not share it with untrusted third parties.
Implementing Legitimate Software Use
This method can be applied by companies to prevent company data leakage. Because if the company uses software that is downloaded from unofficial or illegal sources, then it allows data leaks to occur.
Backup Important Data and Update IT Equipment and Applications
Backing up important company data is one way to anticipate data leaks. If a data leak occurs, the company can still access important company data in the cloud where the data is backed up. Then companies also have to update IT equipment and applications regularly to avoid unpatched vulnerabilities that can be the cause of leaks.
To ensure a secure system as a whole, systems integrated with third parties must also be considered, tested and monitored. This can prevent data leakage from system collaboration gaps which should bring many benefits.
How to Deal with Data Leaks
Businesses that are run affected by data leaks are often an annoying thing for every company. It’s just that to anticipate this, don’t always focus on regret and curse the situation. Here’s how to deal with data leaks.
The company can mobilize a technical team to anticipate widespread leaks and immediately condition the situation.
That evidence, trace, or footprint is very important for digital forensic evidence. If a data leak is found on the server or on one of the computers in the office, try to secure that computer. Traces on devices such as USB, wireless, hard disk, RAM, and others can be very valuable for finding suspects or at least knowing the source of the attack.
In anticipating further data leaks and preventing backdoors or malware or “bad” software from infecting more computers, removing the connection to the main network is the main thing that can be done. In addition, continue to monitor whether there is data that is suspicious, missing or changed.
In facing these challenges and problems, the Helios team is ready to help you. Immediately contact us via the website or contact a Helios representative at [email protected].
