Just a couple of months after the WannaCry attack, another cyber incident called Petya/GoldenEye had 2,000 recorded attacks in at least 64 different countries in just two days after its release. While it may be easy to envision cyber attacks as a hacker inside his basement coding viruses and malware to target a business, what if we told you the threat to your company’s data may be closer than you think?
Right Under Your Nose
In 2015 DataBarracks, an IT security company, released a survey revealing that human error was the leading cause of data loss. Human error caused 62% of reported incidents, far more than natural disasters, viruses or software corruption. As employees continue to work from devices containing sensitive information, what can be done to prevent an “accident” that leads to data loss that can completely shut down your business? In fact, a study done by Gartner found that 43% of companies were immediately put out of business by a “major loss” of computer records, and another 51% permanently closed their doors within two years — leaving a mere 6% “survival” rate.”
Where there’s a will, there’s a lesson!
Like all things in life, innovation and progress are centered around learning. There are several of security methods that employees can learn and implement to prevent human error that leads to data loss.
- Data Security Awareness and Training – Providing awareness that there is an actual threat towards employees not only in a business setting but also a personal one is crucial. It all starts with the leader in charge. There is a shocking amount of leaders that are not aware that their business can be a susceptible target to be attacked. Forbes released a statistic stating that 40% of leaders feel no responsibility for the consequences of being hacked. Leaders who take the time to bring awareness on cyber security to their employees not only care about the life of their business, but the lives working for that business. Dedicating some company time to teach employees what to watch out for will be far more profitable in the long run.
- Data Loss Prevention Software – Implementing a computing software that can backup or restore data to a previous point can be an extremely effective way to not only reduce the risk of human error but also reduce the consequences of human error if it happens to occur.
- Full Encryption of Data – Encrypting your data to protect your company’s sensitive information is effective because it allows that information to be unreadable to outside viewers. Accessibility to that information becomes extremely limited.
- Constantly Update Software – Most network updates are to patch security vulnerabilities in their programs. By constantly updating your software it gives the most well rounded security for your software to negate the chance of attack.
The Invention
The greatest inventions in our society are the ones that can cover a multitude of problems simultaneously. Fortunately, there is an invention that trains and educates on data security, implements its own data loss prevention software, fully encrypts all data entered, constantly updates software and much more: cloud computing. Taking your data to a trusted cloud computing provider allows your business to move its data to a higher form of security. Let’s face it, human error will continue to occur and there is no way to completely stop that from happening. However, cloud computing resists human error by minimizing the consequences of that error. That’s why Forbes states that in 2 years, 73% of companies are planning to move to a fully software-defined data center.
The Cloud Provider
The fundamentals are easy. It comes down to the protection of your business and employees from any given attack that comes your way. You can find RapidScale services such as CloudBackup, and CloudRecovery to be key in the survival of such attacks.
CloudBackup
RapidScale’s CloudBackup solution can protect against ransomware and is a reliable way to recover files following an attack. CloudBackup provides organizations with a seamless and secure backup of their data to RapidScale’s cloud. It is secure, encrypted, scalable and efficient. With a managed approach RapidScale takes care of all the management, monitoring and dependability of the customer’s backed up environment. Learn more about CloudBackup
CloudRecovery
RapidScale’s CloudRecovery offers critical storage-based replication and recovery for scale failures and true disasters, rather than single-item restore. Together, CloudRecovery and CloudBackup can create a well-rounded business continuity plan for a cyber attack. Learn more about CloudRecovery
Check out our RapidScale June Technical Webinar training discussing cyber security threats and how to face them here!
