Data security

Who is responsible for the data security in your company?

6 July 2017

Cybersecurity
GDPR

Once upon a time... there was a suspicious mail from the supplier of office equipment, which seemed to contain ransomware.  In good faith, but also completely unaware of its consequences, the front desk officer activated the integrated cryptolocker. Only two hours later, the phone calls and tickets are rolling in at the internal helpdesk: Word files have been blocked, databases have become unreadable, files shares inaccessible. Half a day later, numerous employees have become technically unemployed. The IT department needs days to observe the extent of the damages and to restore the available back-ups. You are convinced that a similar outbreak won't happen to your company? Or are you convinced that such attacks are part of this digital era and thus inevitable? Not at all.

The rushing digitalization makes it more and more difficult to keep work and personal lives separate. Maybe firewalls and the monthly modification of the Windows password used to be sufficient for the protection of your company against cyber criminality. Trends such as BYOD, self-service and the hundreds of user-friendly apps which flood the app stores every single day, lay a huge part of the security responsibility with the end user. However, there is one problem: this end user is not sufficiently aware of the cyber danger and does not have the appropriate knowledge to discover the World Wide Web in complete safety.

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The era of the Information Security Officer

In 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force in all EU member states. This regulation mentions that all data leaks should be reported to a commission. This can have far-reaching results. Not only for the company which has been a victim of data leaks, but also for the IT providers who are responsible for their customers' security. They can, in the case of a data leak, be held responsible and sanctioned.


In the Cost of Cyber Crime Study 2015 by the Ponemon Institute it seems that companies worldwide are losing more than 7.7 million dollars as a result of cyber crime. High time to think seriously, before 2018, about security directives and security policies.
 

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The fact 68 million Dropbox-accounts and 500 million Yahoo-accounts have been stolen and of which hackers have been using passwords (which had not been changed for years) to access other platforms, proves that the users, both in their private sphere or in the workplace, are insufficiently informed about security. The world wide web cannot be contained anymore, and blocking downloads is not a workable option. But overall company security directives can provide the end users with the required guidance. Sensitize your employees, train their security awareness, and provide instructions for the use of two-factor-authentication and password managers. Only if security is embedded in your corporate culture, employees can assume individual responsibility as far as data security is concerned.

Custom-made support

You want to know at what extend Realdolmen can assist you in security issues, or you want to implement your business-security as a managed service? Please contact us at info@realdolmen.com or call +32 2 801 55 55.

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