Mitigating data breach threats; Tips to build a comprehensive and cost effective cyber cover for your data

Cyber-attacks, often leading to breach or even complete loss of business sensitive data, have become increasingly common as India continues on an expansive mission to enable digital connectivity across its economic fabric. In  2022, the country witnessed data impacting incidents on many prestigious institutions and corporates, pushing India’s positioning as one of the most attacked countries in the world. While awareness has marginally increased, many MSMEs continue to remain vulnerable to the possibility of data loss, triggered by attacks (such as ransomware or distributed denial of service) as well as due to lack of preparedness and effective mitigation strategies.

MSMEs typically do not have dedicated IT personnel, often depending on local technology partners for their IT needs; hence solutions geared to their data protection must be relatively simple and cost effective. The foundational considerations around any data security measures are based on implementing tools and policies around the following pillars 1) Data Confidentiality (i.e. measures to prevent sensitive data from unauthorised access), 2) Data Integrity (maintaining consistency, accuracy and trustworthiness of relevant data), and 3) Data Availability (making data readily available but only to authorised parties).

Another key lens to use for ensuring data security is to use the PDC approach – Prevent, Detect and Correct data breach issues. There are several approaches that can be adopted around this framework:

Prevent breaches of data confidentiality:

• Implement access controls: Access to critical data should be limited to authorized personnel only. Implementing access controls such as strong passwords which are changed frequently, and multi-factor authentication can help prevent unauthorized access.
• Regularly back up data: essential for recovering lost or corrupted data and ensuring that backups are reliable and effective. This is particularly effective against ransomware attacks.
• Update software & tools: regularly update software (including firewalls, password managers, anti-malware) and operating systems.

Detect compromise of internal data stores:

• Periodic audit of IT infrastructure including logs for unusual activity; many free tools are available to automate and alert owners just-in-time to mitigate risks
• Watch for unusual user behaviour: monitor user behaviour for any unusual activity, such as attempts to access sensitive data or changes to user privileges; this is particularly true for existing employees – all their access must be immediately revoked upon release.

Correct any fallout from a data breach:

• Identify root cause, isolate and contain breach – if necessary, taking systems offline, disabling suspicious user access etc to prevent further damage, post detection.
• Train employees: cybersecurity best practices training, covering topics such as phishing attacks, password management, and safe internet access principles usually help a lot.
• Notify stakeholders, share a plan of action to recover as well as prevent recurrences.

By following a combination of the above directives, MSMEs can effectively handle data breaches and minimize the impact on their business. It’s important to note that they should also regularly assess their security posture to proactively identify potential vulnerabilities and implement security controls to prevent security incidents from occurring. Working collaboratively with their technology partners will ensure easier and cost effective implementation of data security related tools, policies and updates to infrastructure, which ultimately will lead to sustained business continuity and positive outcomes.

(The author is Shibashis Sen, Director – CloudOps, Tally Solutions, and the views expressed in this article are his own)