Don't Overlook Security for Your Customers' Data

When it comes to data security, companies have two main concerns, namely, hack attacks and insider threats.

According to the Data Breach Investigations Report released by Verizon in 2012, insider threats only make up about four percent of all data theft incidents.

However, insiders can do much greater damage to a company than cyber-thieves, because they are able to access critical company data and use many different methods to steal it.

Leakage of company data can be intentional or unintentional, but all companies should take effective measures to prevent it from happening.

Implement Policy to Avoid Data Leaks from Unhappy Employees

Every company hopes to remain on good terms with all their current and former employees, but this may not always be possible.

Disgruntled employees may want to sabotage your company as a way to vent their dissatisfaction and anger, and one of the things they may do is leak or steal your customers' data.

One effective way to prevent this is to work with an attorney to implement a policy that details the consequences of malicious data breaches. After you have created the policy, make sure that it is read and acknowledged by all your employees.

If a current or former employee decides to leak or steal your company's data, you can take legal action against him or her. If the breach does not result in serious consequences, a confrontation or warning may suffice.

Lock the Network Down

In a study conducted by InsightExpress, about 46 percent of IT professionals from the United States said that they have caught employees accessing certain parts of their companies' networks without authorization.

There are basically two avenues that insiders use to send company data out, and they are email and the Internet. Employees who are using your company's email system may accidentally send sensitive data to a wrong address, and those who want to steal data can either use a personal web-based email account or upload the data to a file-sharing website. In order to stop data leakage and theft, you need to set up email and web security gateways.

These gateways can be used for tracking and inspecting both inbound and outbound traffic. To ensure optimal data protection, you should get data security products that are developed by reputable companies, such as Syncsort, SonicWall, Vormetric and others.

Regulate Emails

It is not a good idea to impose too many regulations on email communication, because it can have a negative effect on productivity.

However, it is important that you forbid your employees from doing certain things when they are sending emails. Certain file formats and email strings with many "RE:"s can be associated with data leakage or theft.

There are many things that you can do to prevent insiders from leaking or stealing your customers' data.

If you want to make sure that your company's data will be safe, it is best that you seek advice from a reputable provider of data security solutions.