In a digital world, what can be considered as your biggest fear? A text from your bank can trigger your heartbeat, “We regret to inform you that your data may have been exposed due to a recent security breach”

You are in deep stress now, how much data? What can I do now?

Facing this type of notification is not a rare thing anymore. Data breaches have become a very common aspect in the digital world. It doesn’t matter whether you are a big tech company, a fitness app, a gym or a food delivery store, nothing is safe now a days. If we take real examples form the past and try to learn from them, companies like AT&T and 23andMe—have been a victim of data breaches, revealing passwords, email addresses, identities, and in certain situations, private genetic data.

Let’s try to understand this with the help of an example. Let’s assume you have a dog at the entrance of your date so that no unknown person can enter the gate. We can consider the dog as the digital system that protects your device and data from the external threats that resist the viruses and hackers entering your system. Just in case, the threat slips past by the dog, the security system will act as a full inspection team, that will assess the damage, try to track the threat, the intruder, try to find out the loop hole, from where the threat actually entered, so that proper cautions can be take to avoid such incidents in the future to happen.

By the end of this blog, you’ll understand what data breach actually means, what to do if your data have been breached? How to prevent the future incidents? So, you can keep yourself safe and sound.

WHAT IS A DATA BREACH?

Think of this as a thief who enters your property without your permission. Similarly, in the digital world, when a virus enters your system or when a hacker get access to all your data files, whether it is your media files, contact details, credit card numbers, medical reports etc, is termed as data breaching.

In more simple words, data breaching simply means when an intruder get access to all your personal information without your consent.

There are some simple and main targets of the hackers that store large set of information that are following:

• BANKS: Banks store the financial information of the users, attacking them is a direct attack on the finances of the users. The data breach from the bank can simply lead to the loss of all the finances. 
• HOSPITALS: Hospitals have the medical history and data related to the health of the people stored in their systems. If the system gets hacked, it will expose patients to unapproved medical procedures or medical identity theft.
• RETAILERS: Retailers hold a large set of information of the customers about their buying behaviour; their credit card details and purchase history. A simple breach can lead to stealing of customer data that could result in fraudulent transactions.
• APPS: Now a days, many applications hold a large data, for example, the login credentials, location etc. A breach might reveal private information, which could result in account theft or invasions of privacy.

Breaches can happen in many ways, including:

• HACKING: hackers now a days try to get into your system without your consent to get access to all your files. It is an unethical practice.
• PHISHING: As the name sounds, it’s actually sending fake links, emails and moments. So, the moment, user open the link, he/she falls in the trap.
• LOST DEVICES: As now a days, the smart devices like Phones, laptops, or USB drives have all our personal data. Just in case they are misplaced or got stolen, this might result in data breaching.
• INSIDER THREATS: Sometimes, trusting someone may lead to data breaching. Imagine your employees selling the data of the company to its competitor for money.

If you are worried after reading all these threats and you want to safeguard yourself from all these threats, here services like Cypher Sway’s Managed Endpoint Detection and Response service can assist you in monitoring your system and in detecting all types of threats

HOW TO VERIFY IS YOUR DATA IS SAFE OR NOT AFTER A DATA BREACH?

If you really want to check if your data is safe or not, there are some points that you need to consider, which will definitely assist you in monitoring your data and keep your data safe and protected.

a. SIGNS OF A BREACH:

• Emails regarding passwords resetting: If out of the box, you receive emails and text regarding changing the passwords, this might be a sign of hackers trying to enter your system.
• Strange account activity: If you witness strange activities and transactions not done by you, it is a possibility that your account has been hacked. This can lead to the financial loss.
• Company notifies you: There are companies that notify the clients just in case they feel any kind of threat in the data of the clients via emails, texts or phone calls. They alert the user about the threat, it’s a kind advice, never ignore these notifications. These are the official signs that your data might be breached.

b. ASSISTIVE TOOLS FOR BREACH CHECKING:

• HaveIBeenPwned.com: The website assists you in monitoring yours emails that whether your emails are safe or not, if there any chance of data breaches. It’s an easy and effective way to stay aware of any risks.
• Credit monitoring services: This service keeps you alert all the time and help you detect unusual threats, illegal conduct in your name, including credit cards or loans that were applied for without your knowledge.
• Example: Out of the box, you get an email from your food ordering app, you are regularly active on. The email asks you to reset or change your password with immediate effect, but you didn’t initiate the process of changing the password. Now, you are in a state of confusion whether to trust it or not. As a fully aware person, your first step should be using the service like https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to check whether your account is safe or not. Just in case, you find your data has been exposed, your first step should be changing your password and keep an eye of the bank statements.

It’s an important point to consider, never ignore the data breaching services, just in case you find out about the data breaching, take necessary and useful actions to prevent the further damage. Cypher Sway’s Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery solutions assist you and your business to safeguard your data and other sensitive information.

ACTIONS AFTER DATA BREACHING:

Data breaching is very common now a days, anyone of us might face it. But. Knowing the right steps after the incident is all that matters. These steps might help you to minimize the damage and prevent it from happening the same in the future. The following steps might be helpful for you to suspect it:

STEP 1: NEW PASSWORDS IMMEDIATELY:

The first ever step to take after data breaching is changing the password of the affected site. Let’s consider an example, you receive an email from your food fitness app, alerting about you a threat of data breaching. Firstly, visit the site and replace the password with a strong one. Just in case you have same password for all the accounts, with immediate effect, change the password of all the accounts. Set a strong password which is hard to guess but simple to remember. Make strong combination of letters, digits and symbols for example, your date of birth, but in a unique way, 29,2002@Oct.

STEP 2: USE MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION (MFA):

The feature adds a new layer of protection to your system and safeguard your data. It’s like whenever you log in to your email, in the second step, you will receive an OTP on the linked mobile number just to confirm one more time that it’s you who are trying to log in. The benefit is that, just in case your password got leaked, this MFA will help your account to be secured.

STEP 3: KEEPING AN EYE ON YOUR ACCOUNTS:

After you have changed your passwords, first step is to check your email, data, files, social media, just to find out any suspicious or weird activity. For example, you might have observed that, sometimes, the pending friend request on your social media automatically got accepted, when it is not even done by you. These are the signs to unusual threats.

STEP 4: CREDIT, MONITORING OR FREEZING:

In case, the threat or the data breaching is about your financial data and security. If you feel or detect that your data has been exposed, the first step is to freeze or monitor your account. In simple words, freezing the credit means, until you remove the freeze, nobody—including you—can open new credit accounts in your name. Conversely, credit monitoring services notify you of any new credit-related behaviour. Here Cypher Sway’s Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery solutions assist you by playing a role of a protector of your business from data breaching.

STEP 5: BEWARE OF FOLLOW-UP SCAMS:

There might be a high possibility, you receive more threats and more links once you are breached. It might sound like, an email from your bank, asking you to reconfirm your identity as your account has been hacked. Never click such links, there is high chances of you getting breached again. It’s always safe to check the sender mail id.

PROTECTION TIPS FOR FUTURE:

As it is important and essential to take necessary measures after data breaching, it is equally important to build long term protection for your system to avoid future cyber-attacks.

PASSWORD MANAGER KNOW ITS JOB:

It’s really important now a days that you keep different and strong passwords for each account. That actually reduces the chances of data threat and breaching. If you find it difficult to remember all the passwords for different accounts, let password manager do the job. It assists in storing the passwords and suggest strong passwords too.  For example, arc&7211.

NEVER DELAY THE UPDATES:

Updating the application regularly helps in staying strong against all the external threats and hackers. For example- If a new update is available for any of your application, never delay it, it might have new features that can assist you in protecting the system from newly discovered vulnerabilities.

OVERSHARING? THAT’S A HACKER’S DREAM

Never overshare personal information online. It might make you an easy target for scams and other hackers.
Example: Although sharing your birthday on social media might be entertaining, it also provides attackers with one more piece of information about who you are.

DON’T LET APPS SPY ON YOU

Now a days, many of the smart phone applications ask for unnecessary permissions, irrespective of their features and functioning. Never grant permission to such applications. Example: If a flashlight app asks for your camera and contact list, such permissions from your phone’s settings is a warning sign.

CONCLUSION- “DON’T PANIC, JUST BE PREPARED”

Being a victim of data breach might feel scary—but the important aspect is that, how you respond and recover from it. Simple and quick actions like You can prevent additional harm by changing your passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA), and configuring alerts on your email or bank accounts.

Example: Think of it like losing your house key. If you change the locks right away, no harm is done. But if you ignore it, someone could walk right in. Your online data works the same way.

Everything doesn’t have to be handled by you alone. In order to help you stay ready for new threats and recover quickly, Cypher Sway’s Managed Endpoint Detection and Response service and Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery solutions and real-time monitoring tools—Use the appropriate resources, remain vigilant, and take quick action. You can defend your digital environment with a little awareness.

Use the appropriate tools, be vigilant, and move fast. You can keep your digital life safe with a little vigilance.