Lately, there’s been a great deal of media buzz around data security, running concurrent with today’s shifting work landscape. Telecommuting is increasingly common, cloud computing is on the rise and intercontinental work is easily accomplished, constrained only by differences in time zones, if even then. As a tech-dependent working public, we are networked and interconnected to a degree not dreamed of even 15 years ago.

If you are reading this, you are using a computer and the Internet. And you probably use them both for your work. Your employer probably knows what your computer does, and a consulting firm your employer hired probably has access to your customers’ personal data in order to perform the service for which they were hired. Another firm has their customers’ information for similar reasons. And so on and so on, and so on. Thought of as an image, each of us is connected to others in ever-expanding interlinked starbursts. It’s dizzying.

With all these technological and informational relationships, security for one means security for another, and many gaps must be closed. Given this, a thorough and planned approach to security will offer the greatest protection. Yet, some companies focus their security methods on the latest, biggest-news security compromises, acting in a perpetual stream of reaction to keep up with the latest greatest hacks. When we do this, what are we missing?

Plenty. The well-worn, old-news security threats are still highly relevant ones, and could mean the difference between a business succeeding, and being sunk by the costs associated from a data breach. Let’s take a look at the most commonly disregarded threats to cybersecurity.

1) Insiders

These are employees or consultants motivated to steal information.

2) Tool saturation backlash

Security tools are out there in droves. Companies may ask their employees to use them beyond their tolerance level, resulting in lax vigilance.

3) Mobile devices

Loss of a hand-held device such as a phone easily could lead to password discovery in the wrong hands.

4) Common, low-tech threats

A sandbox, for example, containing plans or other sensitive information is accidentally made public by an unwitting user.

5) Risk management

A website may be well-protected, but malware sneaks onto the software for operating one of the devices it markets to a given industry, such as health care.

6) SLA litigation

Expected service level is rising all the time. If a grand promise is made to a customer that can’t be delivered on, the customer may sue, exposing information to the general public.

7) Treacheries of scale

If a firm changes their system to a private cloud, everything is centralized. So, everyone on the system is affected when there are server problems.

8) End-of-life protocols for equipment

This is all too easily exploited by dumpster divers. Reformatting and drilling do not prevent data from being collected off a hard drive by a sufficiently motivated hacker. Hard drive shredding, a service RenovoData Services provides, is the most secure way to prevent data loss, short of smelting.

In the coming years, overall vigilance and dealing directly with issues that can be controlled will be the keys to data security.

1295 Drives Shredded This Morning, at the customer’s location… “zero” data breach, “zero” landfill. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good day!!  – Please call us or click the “quote request” button on the right side of this page.

Follow RenovoData Services on Twitter

Friend us on Facebook