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Cybercrime has quickly become the world’s fastest-growing form of criminal activity, with the number of attacks on businesses increasing by more than 50 percent in the previous year alone.

While most corporations have made considerable investments in cybersecurity defenses to safeguard their organizations from the outside threat of cybercrime, few have tackled the risk of internal breaches in the same manner. Insider threats can arise as a consequence of an unintentional error, such as an employee emailing a critical document to the wrong contact, or as a result of neglect, such as an employee downloading unlicensed software, which leads to a virus spreading throughout the company’s systems. In that case, many corporations partner up with cybersecurity providers for example sapphire.net for immediate and reliable security solutions.

We’ve all made the mistake of mistakenly sending an email to the wrong person or attaching the wrong document; but, present levels of carelessness in email security culture pose an increasing hazard. Few organizations have a clear strategy for educating their employees on how a single mistake can put the firm at risk; even fewer have a strategy for reducing that risk and safeguarding their employees from becoming an internal threat. You also need to ensure you have data engineering solutions in place.

So, who is responsible for ensuring that firm data is secure and confidential?

Breaches From The Inside

According to statistics, insiders are responsible for 34% of all breaches, although many workers are unaware of their responsibilities when it comes to data protection. Employee carelessness and complacency are the primary causes of data breaches, which is logical given that human error is unavoidable in high-pressure circumstances. However, there is definitely a lack of awareness and training. And, while there is an evident and pressing need for improved employee education, should IT executives not be doing more to create solutions that remove the danger of people making unintentional mistakes?

Correct Data Management

Accidental data loss can be reduced and an enhanced and proactive email security culture developed by using simple technology that provides a critical double-check for employees – with parameters specified by corporate security rules – before they send sensitive information over email. In addition to validating outbound and inbound email addresses and attachments – reducing the risk of staff falling victim to a phishing attack – the technology can be used to check for key phrases and data strings in the body of the email, identifying confidential and sensitive data before the user clicks send. Beyond this, if you often utilise the best PDF tools to extract data from documents, ensure that all employees are confident in storing all of this extracted data correctly and securely.

Employee Training

Employees must understand their role in keeping the company’s data secure in order for organizations to reduce the frequency of insider data breaches. However, in addition to providing training to staff, organizations can reduce the danger of unintended error and the potentially disastrous repercussions it may have on the business by implementing a vital tool that suggests a second check and alerts when a mistake is about to be made.

Using Email

Email is undoubtedly the most important productivity tool in most workplaces today; putting the entire burden of responsibility for its security on employees is both an unnecessary burden and, increasingly, a security concern. Supporting employees with a simple, extra alert to double-check that they aren’t inadvertently exposing personal data, on the other hand, promotes awareness, and knowledge, and provides that critical security lock-step — before it’s too late.

If you pay close attention to these areas you should be able to minimize accidental data loss. Do you know any other tips that could help? Please share them in the comments below.

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