If we’ve learned anything from recent events, it’s that we have a growing data security crisis. In the second quarter of 2014 alone, SafeNet’s Breach Level Index revealed that 237 data breaches occurred.
Companies we all know, use and trust with our personal and financial information have been affected, including eBay, Office, Morrison’s and Mumsnet.
With the new EU Data Protection Regulation likely to be approved next year, many companies could be in for a shock if they don’t start preparing.
The new regulation will have major implications on the way in which data is collected, stored, accessed and secured. Most importantly, it will require an entirely new mindset when it comes to securing customer data.
Companies will be mandated to adopt preventative security measures that lower the risks of data breaches and use security measures that help mitigate their consequences. Organisations with lax security will also be put in the spotlight with the requirement to notify both authorities and affected individuals when a data breach occurs.
Beyond the strict requirements of the regulations, companies need to shift to a new data security mindset. Here are four recommendations for security operations professionals to prepare:
The proposed regulation may still be a long way from becoming law, but it’s time to start preparing. Companies need to start taking steps to change their security mindset.
Being breached is not a question of “if but “when”. Traditional approaches to data security do not work anymore, so it’s time to move away from breach prevention, towards a ‘secure breach’ approach.
This means accepting that breaches happen and using best practice data protection to guarantee that data is effectively useless when it falls into unauthorised hands.