Cyber threats continue to explode as hackers become more sophisticated. The recent news showing that the Chinese government has a burgeoning hacking-for-hire industry is alarming to organizations of any size. While the recent reports focus on attempts to compromise large companies and governments, every business is a target.
It seems that the Chinese government has taken this to a new level with monetary incentives, similar to how the US government encourages emerging industries. This is a business, pure and simple, with price sheets and most likely SLAs for stealing information. There are hundreds of enterprising companies that support China’s aggressive state-sponsored hacking efforts.
Challenges to Maintaining Data Security
While all organizations are vulnerable, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) may be at the most risk. According to industry and government sources, SMBs can be three times more likely to be the target of a cyber attack than large companies. One challenge is that budgets may not be adequate to invest in security. It is also difficult to know which security solutions to use making it very challenging to respond to various and increasingly sophisticated hacking. Numerous security threats make companies vulnerable and can even lead to leaks of intellectual property and other sensitive information that affects the existence of the company.
The goal of security is to minimize the risks of a data breach or interruption in the services you provide to customers. Although SMBs are aware of the need for security, it is burdensome to hire personnel to operate the security systems as well as introduce company-wide security products. SMBs often have less money to spend on building their defenses or responding to ransomware, malware, and extortion attacks. It would seem this lack of resources would make SMBs unappealing targets for criminals seeking financial gain. Instead of targeting a large enterprise for one big payout, they’re finding success in hitting several smaller businesses to accumulate massive profits.
Some adversaries don’t target SMBs for the funds they have, but because they are weak links in the supply chain that can be exploited to access larger organizations. Compromising an SMB’s systems may enable an attacker to infiltrate a more valuable business. While larger companies may have good security, ensuring that smaller partners and their partners meet the same standards is a constant struggle.
Persistent Protection and Control
The best way to prevent stealing your sensitive data is to protect the data itself, keeping it continuously encrypted, always requiring authentication to access files, and verifying who used it, when, and how it was used. By encrypting documents and applying dynamic security policies to them, you can limit what a user can do with the files when they get them. Only authenticated and authorized users can access the files, making them useless to hackers.
Perimeter approaches to control access to systems and networks are helpful, but hackers can exploit known or unpatched vulnerabilities. If a hacker steals an encrypted file with security controls layered on top, they can’t access the content inside. If hackers get no information, they will move on to the next easy target. It’s like a burglar trying each house to see which one permits easy access. If the door is locked, they move on to the next one.
Encrypting sensitive files and controlling access is different from DLP, CASB, and endpoint technologies that sit at data ingress/egress points and mostly observe, rather than protect, the data. If someone downloads a file from a cloud location, for example, all the security imposed by the CASB solution evaporates. The same is true of DLP which monitors files as they move around a network, Once the file leaves the network, you lose control and visibility.
Fasoo places controls and strong security closest to what needs protection – the file – and binds them so safeguards travel everywhere with the file.
Fasoo uses the zero trust principle of “trust nothing.” Based on this principle, whenever a user accesses a document, access is controlled through continuous authentication to determine whether the user is an authorized user. Specifically, to provide the strongest security, Fasoo keeps your data encrypted at all times. This can minimize damage to companies caused by data leaks because a hacker can’t open encrypted documents even if they infiltrate and attempt to steal information.
Traditional file encryption solutions decrypt the file when a user accesses the content inside. This makes your sensitive data vulnerable since a hacker could exfiltrate the plain file at any time. Fasoo-protected files are always encrypted. As a user opens the file to view or edit the content, a Fasoo agent decrypts the file’s data into memory and passes it to the application using it, like Microsoft Word. Fasoo puts a protective shell around the data preventing any access to memory or temp files without proper authorization and security controls. Security policies on the file control if a user can copy and paste content from the file to an unprotected location, like email, a messaging tool, or another file. This ensures the data is always protected from unauthorized access.
Continuous Data Visibility
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), zero trust, and regulatory compliance rely on data visibility for continuous monitoring and auditing. Traditional monitoring solutions lose visibility as data moves around siloed applications and unmanaged assets. Fasoo embeds a content tracking ID into each file so it can self-report context about users, devices, and data interactions to a universal log. This increases data visibility and also allows you to build an analysis environment for post-audit or preemptive leak prevention.
Fasoo collects document usage logs and tracking IDs through its proprietary MLB (Micro Log Block) technology and tracks all changes and user history from the initial creation of the document to its disposal to help you visualize data lineage. Through detailed tracking of documents, you can mitigate the risk of data leakage by trusted insiders and understand if hackers are trying to exfiltrate your sensitive data.
Protect the Data
Preventing data breaches is not complicated when you think about protecting the data. Protecting servers, networks, and storage locations is important, but focusing on the data is the most important thing. The best way to protect information that is critical to your organization is to encrypt documents with a persistent, dynamic security policy. Since the file is always encrypted, it protects the security and privacy of your data while on your computer, in the cloud, on your mobile device, and in use.
By dynamically validating user access and permissions each time someone opens a document ensures you do not violate government, industry, or your own rules and minimizes the possibility of a data breach. If a hacker or other unauthorized person gets your document, it’s useless to them, since they can’t read the information inside without your express permission.
