3 Ways Enterprises Can Prevent Sensitive Data Loss

Modern enterprises have to deal with ever-evolving security threats. As AI usage in cyberattacks becomes routine, enterprise security teams need a combination of robust tools and processes to secure their networks.

While attack sophistication is increasing constantly, the good news is that data loss prevention doesn’t require complicated processes. It consists of implementing a few basic processes. Here are some basic security measures that significantly reduce the odds of an enterprise data breach.

Secure network endpoints

Network perimeters are some of the most vulnerable parts of a security infrastructure. Traffic arrives at network endpoints from seemingly everywhere, and a good Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) system plays a huge role in minimizing manual tasks a security team has to execute.

Firewalls are a huge part of good EDR tools since they filter malicious traffic instantly. A sophisticated EDR platform with next-gen firewalls can dig deeply into the origin and technicalities of traffic arriving at an endpoint and reduce the manual reviews a security team has to execute.

Robust security policies are essential to backing up EDR platforms. A good number of enterprises install tools and do not craft good processes. The result is a tool that falls well short of its potential. A good security policy defines everything from security responses to traffic standards.

Access identification and verification are also important parts of a security policy. When combined with a great EDR platform, security policies will reduce the likelihood of an attack harming a network significantly.

Secure data in motion and at rest

Security experts often mention encryption as a catch-all solution to securing data within a network. While encryption is great, enterprise teams must complement it with other security processes. For instance, data retention and access control policies are critical when talking about data security.

While encryption masks data, retention, and access control reduce the possibility of an attacker ever looking at encrypted data. In short, these processes are proactive and nip issues in the bud. Encryption is essential but is a last line of security.

Data retention lands enterprises in trouble more than anything else. Old datasets take up valuable storage space, creating a storage sprawl security teams find difficult to monitor. Eventually, some datasets suffer from less than adequate security measures, making them ripe for a hacker to exploit.

A good data retention policy identifies risky data sets and defines storage conditions for them. These policies allow security teams to erase old, sensitive datasets, reducing the scope of a possible attack.

Access control is a huge part of modern enterprise security functions. While several IAM tools promise much, they're misaligned with the modern enterprise infrastructure environment. Modern enterprises use dynamic infrastructure composed of cloud containers and microservices.

These infrastructures rely on machine-driven services to retrieve data and run apps. However, most access management tools are designed to validate human identities. They're designed for an environment that doesn't exist, transferring the burden of access verification to overloaded security teams.

An API-based agile access management tool is the best solution to these issues. By integrating with every infrastructural element in an enterprise's ecosystem, these tools can automate security certificate renewals and identity management. They can also enforce time-based access to sensitive data, something critical to preventing machine entities from being leveraged by malicious attackers.

Intelligent event handling

For several years now enterprise security teams have depended on SIEM tools to alert them of abnormal events. However, legacy SIEM doesn't account for today's machine-dominated landscape. SIEM tools work well as a log and alert system, but modern security teams need more firepower.

Next-gen SIEM tools are giving security teams the help they need. Most of these tools come embedded within an EDR system, combining alert logging with automated threat prevention. In short, next-gen SIEM doesn't just alert security teams of issues, it also mitigates issues as much as possible.

This automation is critical for security teams since it cuts down on the number of false positives and manual work they need to execute. These automated features give security teams more time to devote to network monitoring and detecting potential insider threats, something no tool can fully solve.

When combined with a sound data governance process, next-gen SIEM will reduce the chances of a data leak. Data governance enforces data handling and storage processes. For instance, a good data governance program enforces metadata definitions.

These definitions give security teams more context when evaluating data and help them figure out the risk associated with those fields should a breach occur.

Data loss prevention is paramount

An enterprise's data is worth billions in business value and securing it should be a top priority. Good cybersecurity practices combine the right tools and processes to reduce the scope of a data breach. Get the basics right, and enterprises can stave off the significant damages that occur due to a data breach.