Enhancing Network Security: 6 Best Practices Across Industries
In the quest to protect sensitive data, we asked six industry leaders to share their most effective network security practices. From CEOs to general managers, their insights range from adopting a holistic data protection strategy to enforcing strong access rules through encryption. Dive into these expert tips to fortify your organization’s network security.
- Adopt a Holistic Data Protection Strategy
- Implement the “Least Privilege” Principle
- Establish Data Backup and a Recovery Plan
- Conduct Regular Vulnerability Assessments
- Enforce Strong and Unique Passwords
- Use Encryption and Strong Access Rules
Adopt a Holistic Data Protection Strategy
To safeguard against cyber-attacks, organizations must adopt a holistic strategy, including three key practices:
Encryption: Data protection relies on encryption. However, it’s important to not only encrypt information but also establish a secure framework for encryption key and certificate management.
Multi-Factor Authentication: This provides extra security by requiring users to pass through multiple layers of authentication before accessing data and systems.
Security Training: Human errors pose a significant risk. Companies need clear data management rules and ongoing training to raise awareness and ensure compliance.
These practices create a strong base that adapts to new challenges and safeguards the organization’s data and systems.
Slava Podmurnyi
CEO and Co-Founder, Visartech
Implement the “Least Privilege” Principle
A vital network-security practice that organizations should implement to safeguard sensitive data is the principle of “least privilege.” By granting employees and users only the minimum permissions required to perform their tasks, organizations can mitigate potential risks.
Just as machine learning optimizes operations, minimizing access privileges minimizes the attack surface. This practice enhances data confidentiality and prevents unauthorized access.
Jay Toy
General Manager, 88stacks
Establish Data Backup and Recovery Plan
Implementing a comprehensive data backup and recovery plan is an effective network security practice to protect sensitive data. This practice ensures that even if a security breach occurs, organizations can restore their data and minimize the impact of the incident.
By regularly backing up sensitive data and having a solid recovery plan in place, organizations can swiftly recover from data loss or unauthorized access. For example, with a ransomware attack, where data is encrypted and held hostage, having recent backups allows organizations to restore their systems without paying the ransom, reducing financial and reputational damages.
Jason Cheung
Operations Manager, Credit KO
Conduct Regular Vulnerability Assessments
Organizations should regularly conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify and address potential vulnerabilities in their network infrastructure.
By simulating real-world attacks, organizations can proactively identify weaknesses and implement safeguards to protect sensitive data. For example, a financial institution could hire an external security firm to perform penetration testing, attempting to breach their systems and identify vulnerabilities.
Based on the findings, the organization can then patch vulnerabilities, update configurations, or enhance security measures to strengthen its network security and protect sensitive data.
Roy Lau
Co-Founder, 28 Mortgage
Enforce Strong and Unique Passwords
One effective network security practice that organizations should implement to protect sensitive data is the use of strong and unique passwords.
Ensuring that all employees and users have strong passwords that are not easily guessable can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Encouraging the use of passphrases, combining uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters, can create more secure passwords.
Aviad Faruz
CEO, Know Mastery
Use Encryption and Strong Access Rules
Encryption is a good network-security technique that companies should use to protect private data; it is the process of turning private data into code that can’t be read.
This keeps unwanted people from getting to the data. By encrypting data, even if a cybercriminal gets past the network barriers, they won’t be able to read the protected data without the decryption key.
This also makes data leaks much less likely and ensures that private information stays safe, even if there is a security breach. Using strong access rules is a good way to protect private data on a network. Organizations should use this method.
This means limiting and controlling the access rights of users, devices, and apps to make sure that only approved people can access private information.
Daniel Foley Carter
Founder, Daniel Foley SEO
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