Preventing Data breaches

•Data Breach is whereby

confidential, sensitive, or
protected information is exposed
to an unauthorized person. The
files in a data breach are viewed or
shared without permission.
•Anyone can be at risk of a data
breach from individuals to high-
level enterprises and
governments. More importantly,
anyone can put others at risk if
they are not protected

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 How does a data
breach occur
•An Accidental Insider An example would be an employee using a co-
worker's computer and reading files without having the proper
authorization permissions. The access is unintentional, and no
information is shared. However, because it was viewed by an
unauthorized person, the data is considered breached.
•A Malicious Insider This person purposely accesses or shares data
with the intent of causing harm to an individual or company. The
malicious insider may have legitimate authorization to use the data,
but the intent is to use the information in nefarious ways.
•Lost or Stolen Devices.A laptop without encryption or unlocked
laptop or external hard drive anything that contains sensitive
information goes missing.
•Malicious Outside Criminals These are hackers who use various
attack vectors to gather information from a network or an individual.

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Preventing Data
Breaches
Because data breaches are so costly, it’s important
to invest time and money in making sure they do
not happen. Below I will show you 12 best practices
to prevent data breaches that you can undertake as
a small business owner or individual employee.

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Ways to Prevent Data Breach
Educate your employees
Fighting ignorance is one of the best ways to prevent data breaches. It is important
to educate your employees on how to protect data from being compromised. You
can do this by helping them understand how to create strong passwords, how often
they should change their passwords, and by helping them spot, avoid, and report
phishing scams and other suspicious activity.  
Create and update procedures
You can create procedures related to data security standards and update them
consistently. This will make it clear what your company’s expectations are as it
relates to data. This will also show to your employees that you take data seriously
and remind them that they should take it seriously as well. Additionally, it is wise to
consider using roles and permissions when it comes to accessing certain types of
data. For example with (PaySimple) you can set users to have varying access and
viewing permissions. This feature provides a proactive approach to enforcing data
procedures within your business.

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 Remote monitoring
Remote monitoring provides around-the-clock monitoring of your network. You
can work with a managed IT services provider so that you don’t have to staff IT
people around the clock to monitor your systems for you.
Data backup and recovery
Sometimes data breaches can maliciously delete all of your data. It’s important
to have your data backed up so that it can easily be recovered in case of data
loss, a server crash, or even a natural disaster. Your IT team should have an

Ways to Prevent
automated remote backup systems set in place on a regular basis to protect you
from losing important data.
Keep only what you need

Data Breach Keep track of the information you keep on your computers and occasionally
eliminate what is unnecessary. It is also important to minimize the number of
places that you store confidential data and keep track of where those places
are.   
Note: Always closely follow any data retention standards for your company or
industry as these may require you to store data for a set amount of time. 

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Ways to Prevent Data Breach

Destroy before disposal

Before you dispose of anything that may have confidential
information on it, make sure it is properly destroyed. For
example, cross-cut shred paper files. Also, make sure you use
software designed to permanently wipe data off devices like old
phones, laptops, or hard drives. Simply deleting the files or
reformatting does not fully erase data.
Safeguard physical data
Because physical actions can cause data breaches, it is important
to safeguard all data, including physical files. Make sure physical
records are stored in a secured location and that access is
restricted to only the employees that need access.

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 Empower employees with best practices
Employees should have a firm understanding of websites that can expose
work computers to risks, such as file-sharing websites. The same goes for
mobile devices they use in the course of work. Especially with remote work,
you should encourage them to only use work computers for business uses and
keep other activities to their personal computers. 
Maintain up-to-date security software
It is important to make sure you take proper precautions to avoid a security
Ways to Prevent breach. You can purchase security software and automate it to run on a
continuous basis. Firewalls, anti-virus software, and anti-spyware software are
Data Breaches important tools to defend your business against data breaches. Work closely
with an internet security team or provider to set these up correctly. 
Encrypt data
If you send confidential data by email, make sure that they are encrypted
before they are being sent. If using a Wi-Fi network, ensure you have a
dedicated network for your team that the public can’t access. For the most
sensitive data, you may require employees to not use Wi-Fi at all as it can
allow cyber criminals to intercept data.

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 • Protect portable devices
Flash drives, mobile phones, tablets, and other portable
devices are easy to lose or steal. Make sure that portable
devices have hard-to-guess passwords in place, anti-theft
apps installed, and other security measures taken so
they can only be accessed by authorized users.
Ways to Prevent • Hire an expert
Data Breach Managing a small business is time consuming and
thinking about data breaches may not be in your
wheelhouse. If that is the case, you may want to
consider hiring a security expert to run this for you, or
simply consult you on best practices to help you avoid a
data breach within your company.

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