As technology evolves, we notice how prepared businesses are regarding their cybersecurity levels, and we conclude that it’s an underrated company sector. Locally, but even worldwide, several industries lack proper cybersecurity measures and are forced to pay the consequences of a data breach. In the UK, banks, suppliers and internet service providers had to handle cybersecurity reports from 30% of businesses that went through data breaches.
Considering that numerous companies and charities are hit yearly by these attacks, the costs of dealing with such problems legally are tremendous.
The truth is that data breaches cannot be avoided entirely, given hacker’s professionalism in finding system cracks. However, many organisations don’t invest in cybersecurity enough as they don’t see their business as a target.
Therefore, if you don’t want to be part of the companies struck by data breaches in 2024, here’s what you’ll need to do.
Become aware of possible dangers
The initiation step requires you to research possible situations in which your company might experience such an event. Know it’s not that complicated for your systems to be compromised if someone guesses the passwords of your employees or when a very well-made phishing attack targets the company.
In reality, becoming the victim of a cyberattack is relatively easy due to a lack of training and awareness. You’re working with valuable information as your customer’s data is stored in your systems, and if someone illicitly accesses it, you’re the one to blame. Typically, a data breach claim solves the situation, especially when data controllers and processors are involved. But it’s easier and less expensive to be wary of the risks out there of being hacked, which will protect you.
Manage data more efficiently
Data management is crucial for a company’s success, but it can provide security and productivity if done correctly. Leveraging this task has the potential to lower costs, improve customer relations, and provide insight into sales prospects, but it should be implemented for data safety reasons.
Safeguarding your digital assets, from documents to media files, must be done in consideration of exposure and compromise risks. This means your company must ace at organising data, protecting it from unwanted attention, and disclosing it only to those it matters in the company, such as management.
Adopt proper technology infrastructure
Protecting a minor or huge dataset requires solid infrastructure and the latest technologies, as handling data can no longer be done manually. This involves approaching several actions, like updating your current systems and including patches needed to be up-to-date with the latest system requirements and security upgrades.
On the other hand, you must mitigate vulnerabilities and find the missing pieces of your systems to ensure no one can crack them. Even the slightest weaknesses can be exploited if they have the potential to yield massive incomes, so make sure you don’t use outdated software or operating systems anymore.
Approach new technologies
As a business, you must find ways to innovate to provide superior products and services. In this case, ensuring proper security means adopting emerging technologies that are more efficient than traditional ones and have minimal management requirements.
For instance, you could look into AI (artificial intelligence) programs that help automate all kinds of digital tasks so you can shift your focus towards more important ones. AI is significantly helpful in managing data and providing forecasts based on online information. On the other hand, blockchain technology became pretty popular recently as it offers decentralization features through which you can safely store data instead of using a cloud service. Of course, leveraging these technologies requires the help of a professional.
Train your employees
One of the things that companies totally miss is employee training, especially when it comes to protecting online systems. Typically, people choose basic passwords that are easy to learn after minimal research, putting the data systems at risk as they might have access to them. At the same time, you might want to expect some laid-off workers to look for revenge and use their last day to transmit information outside the company.
Employee training is necessary to ensure data is in good hands as you’ll work with data such as names, addresses, and bank accounts that can easily get leaked with the wrong click. At the same time, training shouldn’t stop on the first working day but must continue, considering that hacking methods evolve and new regulations and trends emerge.
2024 will be the year of election-based data breaches
Lastly, companies must be wary that 2024 is an electoral year, meaning different parties will try to increase their likeliness of winning in many illicit ways. The US, India and South Korea are only a few places where elections will be held this year, so there’ll be a lot of pressure in the online environment regarding propaganda and misinformation.
The internet will be filled with fake news, hacktivism, spear phishing, and other cyber crimes, so expect customers to be driven by their favourite party to take extreme promotion measures. Moreover, you must be wary of who you stand with or how much you disclose your political opinion because it might affect your business. Usually, companies shouldn’t have anything to do with elections but will somehow always be involved in these issues.
Additionally, you could take precautions by strengthening your cyber resilience and contributing to media literacy to show your implication in real-world events without being biased and making suppositions or predictions. For example, you could show how easy it is to spread lies on the internet without verifying the source, but this should be done tactfully so it’s not easy to interpret.
Bottom line
As a business, you’re responsible for managing customer data, especially when you collect and leverage it for the company’s interest. This means protecting your systems to ensure no weaknesses are lingering and training your employees to secure information during their daily tasks properly. Therefore, you must build trust and resilience by approaching the right technology and investing in cybersecurity measures.
