1. Data theft can happen to anyone, regardless of your security level. You could put a 20-foot wall around your Office, but someone has a 21-foot ladder. Recently there were the scandals in the US surrounding Sony, Home Depot and Target, which just goes to show security breaches can happen to anyone. As you can imagine all of these businesses had top of the range security policies in place. Surprisingly it was the people inside the business that started leaking the data. Whether or not the leak was intentional, internal employees tend to allow a hacker access.
2. Learn the warning signs and how to act upon them. There are a lot of IT departments that are unsure or not aware of what they don’t know when it comes to data. Simple things like where it is, what type and the baseline of normal data usage and creation are crucial when it comes to recognising and troubleshooting threats. One of the easier warning sign to spot is an unusual change in read/write patterns. For example, if someone was to dump or take your data hostage they might use something like CryptoLocker, them you might notice your unstructured data changing rapidly.
Human error is extremely hard to avoid and the chances of error increase with the number of people. Regular and relevant training for your employees on your business policies are central to preventing human error. Along with training, there needs to be a set of triggers and processes that can detect when and what data is at risk, then providing suitable protection. Minimising any problems that take place is important, so having a thorough containment policy is paramount.
3. Even if you work at Fort Knox don’t think your data is totally safe. Firstly most people don’t work at Fort Knox, secondly Fort Knox is susceptible from the inside. If there are any abnormalities in your data you need to be able to find a correlation and ask who, what, when, and how. These questions can help you determine the extent of the issue and possible ways of troubleshooting the solution. An important point about these questions is that they work together, you will find it a lot harder to find the solution if you’re only asking 1 question.
4. Storage and security can work together, traditionally this isn’t the case but if the problem has sprouted from the inside then an exception to your physical defences may take place. Traditionally scanning your storage for abnormalities may either conflict with your backup routines or impact performance, which can lead to your data issues being left unresolved for days, even weeks.
Storage can help determine if data is compromised and who has been accessing it. Hackers go for the data and storage can play a big part in defending it.
The most important thing to remember and reiterate about data security is everyone’s’ job, so share the responsibility in defending it.
Content Inspired from Network Computing
