What is Data Leakage and How to Prevent It?

Unwanted transmission of private and confidential organization and individual data to an external entity is referred to as Data Leakage. It is an important issue and can ruin your entire working model. Important: how to prevent data leakage?

Important Points of Difference

Many of us often confuse between data leakage and data breach, however in reality they are different from each other.

Data Breach: This refers to intended cyber-attacks that can by-pass the security walls of a device and access the data stored on it.
Data Leakage: Every data leakage can be a data breach but the vise-versa does not hold. Poor security walls, mishandling of hard drive and computer system, and accidentally exposed data can also result in data leakage. It can occur via emails, USB keys, portable devices, and over the web.

Data leakage is categorized into low data theft activities, which can completely damage and ruin the security systems of any organization. The most dreadful part of data leakage is that, once the data is leaked it gets highly difficult to ensure if the data was accessed by any unauthorized entity or not.

Even a simple error in data handling can cause massive damage to the financial, reputational, regulatory, and legal image of the organization, hence it is quite imperative to prevent data leakage through intentional attacks or accidents.

Here are a few precautions that one should follow to prevent any kind of data leakage.

Preventive Measures Against Data Leakage | Keep Your Data Protected And Secure

In many cases data leakage happens due to honest human errors but a major part of it is also a result of malicious cyber attacks. Here are some preventive measures that will help you to minimize the possibility of data leakage.

Follow restricted Email policies: sharing of Out-of group emails should be restricted to a certain level, and restrictions should be placed on the email domain to which an employee can send emails and attachments.
Establish the ground rules of a BYOD policy: Bring Your Own Device policy can often result in data leakage and accidental transmission of data. Hence it is essential to clearly define what all types of gadgets are allowed in the office. Camera phones, USB drives, laptops are a few devices that can result in data leakage.
Provide restricted access: The chances of data leakage highly reduces when access is limited to a few people. Organizations should clearly define the access right of employees to certain information and data.
Train Employees about cybersecurity: Awareness training about cybersecurity should be conducted from time to time for employees. This will keep them prepared and will help them identify unusual emails and activities trying to steal data.

Data Leakage or Data breach can cause massive damage to your organization, hence we must follow the best cybersecurity practices and carry utmost caution while accessing sensitive information and confidential organization data.

Adrian