An Expert Guide to Securing Sensitive Data: 34 Experts Reveal the Biggest Mistakes Companies Make with Data Security
Nate Lord
Last Updated: Friday September 23, 2016Click here to view original web page at digitalguardian.com
Keeping sensitive information secure from theft and vulnerability in today’s digital world isn’t as easy as putting a lock on the file cabinet – especially with the widespread adoption of cloud computing. And even if you take every precaution with your online accounts and identifying information, there are many ways that information can land in another individual or company’s data management systems, where it can then somehow be made vulnerable to date theft or data leakage.
At Digital Guardian we specialize in helping businesses manage and secure various types of company data. Our top priority is helping our customers keep their sensitive data where it belongs and as secure as possible. To get a better picture of the current state of enterprise data protection and data loss prevention we interviewed data security experts on what matters most when securing sensitive data.
To do this, we asked 34 data security experts to answer this question:
“What’s the #1 biggest mistake companies make when it comes to securing sensitive data?”
We’ve collected and compiled their expert advice into this comprehensive guide to effectively securing your company’s sensitive data. See what our experts said below.
SKIPPING FORWARD TO MY PIECE:
Jeremy Ames
The #1 biggest mistake companies make when it comes to securing sensitive data is…
More specifically, in most companies, executives are held to a lower standard of data security than the rest of the employee base. They’re allowed more leniency in terms of BYOD and in general they operate more freely outside the corporate firewall, which is a huge mistake.
The reality is that if a group is out there trying to plan a cyber attack, they’re most likely to target a member of the C-Suite, particularly the CEO, because they know he or she is going to be the holder of the most sensitive information.
That means that executives need to be even more diligent than the rest of the employee base, because if information is compromised it could have damaging financial and legal ramifications. That being said, most companies fail in the three-pronged defense necessary to protect executives:
- additional focus by IT
- continued education by HR and
- personal responsibility by the executiveJeremy Ames is President of Hive Tech HR, a technology consultancy that helps companies find, implement and enhance their HR systems. He is a member of the 2014 SHRM HR Management and Technology expertise panel, and former CFO of IHRIM, an association for Human Resources Information Management. Jeremy has been quoted in many articles dealing with the securing of HR data, including a SHRM article entitled “Prevent CEOs, C-Suite Executives from Getting Hacked” and a recent article about the Backoff virus.
