Avoiding Accidental Data Breaches: Essential Steps to Secure Your Workplace

Data has become the lifeblood of modern-day business, driving decisions, operations, and growth. It’s an essential aspect that keeps businesses ticking and, when disrupted, can bring them to a crashing halt. My name is Shimon Sorga, and I’m a cybersecurity expert with over 10 years of experience. Today, I’ll guide you through the steps to avoid accidental data breaches at your workplace.

In an increasingly digital world, even a tiny mistake can lead to a cyber breach or accidental data incident where sensitive information is mishandled or exposed. These incidents, often caused by human error, can have significant consequences, ranging from financial penalties and reputational damage to operational disruption. In this blog post, we’ll explore what an accidental data incident is, its risks, and, most importantly, how to protect your business by adopting practical, proactive measures to prevent them.

What's the Difference Between an Accidental Cyber Breach and a Cyber Incident?

Before we go any further, let's define two of the terms that are integral to this blog post to help you understand the context in which they are used throughout the piece: 

• Cyber Breach: A cyber breach occurs when unauthorized access to data, applications, services, networks, or devices is achieved. This typically involves the theft or exposure of sensitive information. 
• Cyber Incident: A cyber incident is a broader term encompassing any event that threatens information systems' integrity, confidentiality, or availability. This can include cyber breaches, malware infections, denial-of-service attacks, or accidental data loss.

An accidental data incident or cyber breach refers to any unintentional event or mistake that exposes, mishandles, or compromises sensitive information. These incidents can often be traced back to human error or an oversight, hence the term ‘accidental’ data incident. For example, a company’s employee might accidentally send sensitive data to the wrong person, which could expose the business to various repercussions, depending on what the recipient decides to do with the information.

What Are the Risks of an Accidental Data Incident?

The risks that an accidental data incident poses to the average business can vary from extensive data exposure and reputational damage to operational disruption and loss of intellectual property. Let’s look at a few of the potential risks in a bit more depth:

• Financial Damage: In a world where costs seem to be skyrocketing left, right, and centre, the last thing the average business needs is another financial burden. However, that’s exactly what an accidental data incident could result in, as a data incident, accident or not, inevitably means the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be on the case to impose substantial fines for data breaches.
• Reputational Damage: Reputational damage can be equally as unsavoury as financial damage. The most damaging aspect is the loss of trust companies will undoubtedly lose with their customers, and negative publicity can come the way of the business as a by-product of an accidental data incident, especially for a bigger firm.
• Operational Disruption: As a globally recognised managed IT services provider, we know how much disruption data incidents can cause a business. Business continuity and productivity are vital for modern businesses to remain competitive and grow. Compromised, corrupted, or lost data can also massively impact the accuracy and reliability of business processes.

Common Causes of Accidental Data Incidents

Now let’s take a look at some of the most common root causes of accidental data incidents and the steps you can take to mitigate the risk of each one.

Human Error

This is probably the most likely route to an accidental data incident. Human error can result from something as innocuous as emailing the wrong recipient or unintended data deletion.

Security Week, a cybersecurity news, insights & analysis publication, reported the findings from Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report, which included this staggering statistic: ‘74% of all data breaches involve the human element’. This statistic highlights just how frequently human error can result in accidental data incidents, making it one of the leading causes of data breaches in businesses today

Phishing Attacks 

Phishing attacks are another significant cause of accidental data breaches and could have detrimental consequences if the phishing attempt succeeds. Phishing is one of the most common types of cyberattacks in the UK, where attackers use deceptive emails, messages, or websites to trick individuals into providing sensitive information, such as their financial details, login credentials, or personal data.

Cybercriminals can infiltrate and bypass the most stringent of security measures by using malicious means such as:

• Deceptive Emails: Emails sent from what appear to be legitimate sources but are, in fact, malicious in nature. The recipient is often coerced or tricked into clicking malicious links or downloading harmful attachments.
• Credential Theft: Another very real possibility is the likelihood of an accidental data breach due to credential theft. This can happen when a phishing attempt has been successful in obtaining a user's credentials; attackers can leverage this information to gain unauthorized access to systems and business-critical data.
• Malware Distribution: Malware distribution is another common form of phishing which can catch people out. Attackers can distribute malware, aka malicious software, by gaining access to a user’s profile and successfully tricking them into exposing their details. Once in the system, the attackers can install malware capable of stealing data, monitoring user activity, or providing attackers with remote access to the infiltrated system.

Unsecured Devices

Unsecured devices can pose similarly significant risks to data security and, if they fall into the wrong hands, lead to accidental data incidents. Cyberattackers can take advantage of unencrypted devices that are lost or stolen (laptops, smartphones, US devices etc,.) to compromise the laptop or smartphone’s data

Poor Password Management

Adopting poor password practices in the workplace is a sure way to encounter a data incident. According to Web Hosting Professional, poor password management accounts for ‘81% of company data breaches’. This statistic underscores the need to implement strong password practices to avoid accidental data breaches.

Accidental data breaches could come from:

• Weak Passwords: Simplistic, easily guessable passwords reused across multiple websites and devices (1234 or abdc, for instance).
• Password Sharing: Sharing passwords is never a good idea, especially in the workplace, as it drastically increases the company's risk of encountering an accidental data incident. If one person’s credentials are compromised, a cyberattacker could gain unauthorised access to multiple company accounts.
• Human Error: Employees can sometimes make small mistakes or misjudgements. For instance, an employee struggling to remember their password might write it on a sticky note and leave it in plain sight. This practice exposes the password to anyone passing by the desk, including colleagues, visitors, or even cleaning staff, potentially leading to unauthorised access and security breaches.
• Lack of Awareness: Some employees may not be aware of how severe the repercussions could be if someone leveraged their credentials to cause a data incident. That’s why our cybersecurity experts at Netitude advocate regular training and cybersecurity awareness programmes to educate staff on password management best practices, such as using strong, unique passwords and implementing multi-factor authentication where possible to mitigate the level of risk.

Best Practices for Avoiding Data Incidents

Here are some of the tried and tested preventative measures you can take to secure your business against data incidents.

Employee Training

As we covered in the last section, enhancing your employees' awareness by educating them on potentially devastating risks can be a great place to start in terms of best practices. If done well, this should act as a wake-up call to your employees, hopefully leading them to take cybersecurity best practices more seriously.

As part of our extensive range of Managed Cyber Security Services,  we provide our enterprise customers with end-user security training and customised phishing campaigns to ensure their employees are well-equipped to recognize and respond to cyber threats, enhancing their overall security posture.

Data Classification & Handling

The classification and holding of data involved organising and managing data based on its sensitivity and importance. Classifying data is all about categorising the data into different levels based on its sensitivity and the impact it could have on the organisation if accessed unlawfully, altered, or lost altogether. Data handling refers to the procedures and practices used to manage data throughout its lifecycle, from the day-to-day creation and storage of data to its usage and disposal.

It's imperative that best practices such as having strict access controls, end-to-end encryption and data hygiene (practices and processes used to ensure data is clean, accurate, and well-maintained) practices.

Email & Communication Security

Email and communication security involves protecting email addresses, accounts and all forms of communications from being accessed, lost or compromised. Here are some of the key aspects to be aware of for both email and communication security:

Email Security Practices

Email security tools can help your organisation level up its cybersecurity. Secure email gateways will reduce your chances of facing an accidental data incident.

They help protect your business against threats (malicious emails) by being filtered out of your inbox, meaning you don’t even come across them. Implementing secure email gateways also helps your business comply with regulation standards and can even improve organisational productivity.

You can also take extra steps, such as encrypting specific sensitive emails so that the content is only acceptable to the intended recipient and enforcing user training so employees can recognise and avoid email-based threats. Subsequently, the risk of human error is mitigated.

Communication Security

Taking control of your communication security is another best practice you can adopt within your organisation. Doing so will help protect various stakeholders, such as your employees, client base, and partners. We urge you to stay on top of your communication security by adopting secure messaging platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, to protect the confidentiality of your organisational communications.

Establishing strict access controls that ensure only authorised personnel can access sensitive communications, keeping track of communication activities by monitoring and logging comms and enforcing clear policies and parameters for secure communication practices are also essential steps that can help you stay on top of your cybersecurity.

Implementing best practices like employee training, secure communication strategies, and strong password policies can significantly reduce your business's risk of unintentional data breaches.

Creating Strong Password Policies

Here are a few password practices to be mindful of when trying to avoid an accidental data incident in the workplace:

• Complex Password Requirements: Most websites now require users to insert a complex password that combines uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. This is a great habit to get into as it significantly enhances the security of your accounts, making it much harder for cybercriminals to guess or crack your passwords.
• Regular Password Changes: You can stay one step ahead of cyber attackers by ensuring all passwords within your organisation are updated regularly, once a quarter may be sufficient.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA is another handy tool for helping secure your business from the ground up. It’s another best practice for our cybersecurity advocates here at Netitude—that additional layer of security could make all the difference! Check out one of our latest blog posts to learn about Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

Rounding Off

Accidental data incidents can strike unexpectedly, but the damage they cause—financial losses, reputational harm, and data breaches—can be long-lasting. The good news is that many of these incidents, including data breaches, are preventable so long as the necessary steps are taken. 

Businesses can significantly reduce their risk by focusing on employee education, improving communication security, enforcing strong password policies, and leveraging tools like multi-factor authentication. Protecting your data starts with awareness and best practices, so prioritise cybersecurity in your workplace. If you're looking to enhance your data security strategy, consider partnering with our cybersecurity experts at Netitude to safeguard your business against potential threats.

Contact the team today to reduce your chances of encountering an accidental data incident at work!