Data breaches continue to torment organizations.  There are numerous examples of malicious or inadvertent data breaches throughout businesses and organizations of all types and sizes.  Hackers get all the press, but insiders pose as great a risk as any external party when it comes to vulnerabilities.

Regardless of who you are, your information is under attack.

With the start of September and most employers still focused on remote workers, now is a good time for a few tips on preventing a data breach.

Did you know that paper-based incidents still account for a whopping 30 % of data breaches? It’s helpful to keep this statistic in mind and plan for secure print in your organization’s document protection program.

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Wouldn’t it be a shame if it slowed down your business and turned out to be useless for protecting your data? Here’s what I’m getting at:

74 percent of U.S. companies say they will keep some remote work arrangements in place post-pandemic. In other news, roughly 359,000 cybersecurity positions in the U.S. went unfilled at last count.

Taken together, these data points spell trouble. This is where the policy part comes in. Data breaches involving sensitive information have been skyrocketing recently. What about the document access and use policies at the affected organizations? Why didn’t they matter?

Information security is a big arena, and it seems like there are more and more holes to plug every year.  Most organizations focus on perimeter-based security intending to keep out the bad guys.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t address the accidental or malicious exposure of sensitive information by trusted insiders.  Enterprise based data-centric security is security for individual files that keep data safe even after it’s left a company’s secure network — and that can be a lifesaver.

To understand why let’s look at the story of Company X.  The Company was a strong, growing, medium-sized enterprise that was earning a reputation in its field.  Leadership was aware of the need for strong data security, and the top-level executives invested a lot of time, effort, and money into securing the Company’s network and backing up all files.  Its information security efforts focused both internally and externally: they went far beyond a firewall to keep out hackers, implementing smart policies and security controls on internal users to prevent intentional or accidental breaches of sensitive files.

Did you know April 26th is World IP Day? It was designated by the member states of WIPO, the IP forum of the United Nations, to increase the general understanding of intellectual property and how it enables technological innovation.

Let’s celebrate with a roundup post. Perhaps you enjoyed the recent discussion on this blog with GE Gas Power cybersecurity researchers Hillary Fehr and Chris Babie of the challenges involved with protecting IP in manufacturing? Or the insights shared by Markus Fischer, VP Engineering at ZF Group’s Active Safety Systems division, into IP theft and IP protection of CAD files in the automotive industry?

We know we did. For this World IP Day post, we asked more IP protection thought leaders what they think the biggest challenge is for manufacturers battling IP theft. Read their responses below:

The rising wave of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft has manufacturers on edge. Are you tasked with finding the right Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) solution for your company?

Check out these five tips from IP protection experts in manufacturing. 

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Are you looking into EDRM solutions to ramp up your organization’s IP protection?  Congratulations, buckle up and hold on for the ride. 

Because this is mission-critical to your company’s future, it’s only natural that you feel the pressure to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. The tips below will help you zoom in on the essentials quickly.

Data breaches make headlines every day and companies across the globe struggle to meet changing privacy regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the upcoming California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) and of course, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data security is very high on the list of corporate priorities with most concentrating on protecting databases containing personally identifiable information (PII). Sensitive information subject to privacy or industry regulations is not found or stored solely in structured databases, but in unstructured files like Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, images, and computer-aided design (CAD) drawings.

Never has there been a better litmus test for seeing how agile your business is than responding to a pandemic. A recent survey by leading research firm Gartner confirmed that most businesses will shift some employees to remote work permanently as a result of COVID-19. Even from home, employees need to collaborate securely with colleagues, partners and customers to stay productive and meet deadlines and goals. While video chat and instant messaging lets you communicate, a lot of collaboration is through documents. Ideally you want to easily share documents, make sure everyone is working on the most recent version, and be able to securely manage all your projects. With the major shift to working at home, the time to double down on data security is now.

I read a Tweet recently from “Accidental CISO” about collecting laptops from terminated employees during the pandemic that I deemed retweetable (if that is a word).  Some comments focused more on the hardware – how to get it back – but this got me thinking more about what is actually on the hardware. What sensitive information, like intellectual property, might reside on them?  It also made me think, in a situation like this, how the potential for insider theft is far greater.

Files containing IP can be either printed on home printers, sent over email to personal accounts, saved on a USB stick, screen captured and so on.  These are not necessarily actions of malice, but obvious desperation to assist with the basic need for employment.

Overnight, companies across the globe were forced into a fully remote workforce.  If you are prepared, under the best of circumstances, it can still be a challenge, but if you are not, the challenges are even greater and some things can potentially fall through the cracks.  People working from home can lead to a few unintended bad habits. With business continuity being the priority, data is even more at risk as hackers and thieves see opportunity when your guard is down.

For companies that don’t have tools in place, and for that matter, those that don’t have the right tools in place, here are some things you can do while ensuring the health of your employees, and your business stays on track.