How fast to lose business or work: stick

Today we want to tell you something about the theft.

In the era of high-tech information has become more valuable than gold, but because they steal confidential data more and more. And suffer from it all, because the problem, in spite of the popular position of "none of my business," applies not only to executives and business owners, but you and me. Lose their trade secrets, the company can simply shut down, and then all will remain out of work. But even if this does not happen, the financial loss could affect the payment of bonuses, delay salary or just the mood of guidance - agree, it is not very pleasant to work when the director is not in the spirit.

According to statistics, it is still among the most popular means of "withdrawal" of valuable information are the good old flash drives and external hard drives. In most companies, information is generally not protected, and no one controls what devices connect employees through the USB-ports and what they download or bring yourself to them. But you most likely do not flow away due to some guru-hackers, and "thanks" to the company's employees, including the former.

What this translates into, and how to fight it? This conversation today.

A bit frightening statistics

Not to be unfounded, we have collected for you some very good examples of data leakage.

Last year, Russia has distinguished that reached the second place in the ranking of countries by the number of leaks of confidential information. These data are taken from the report of the company InfoWatch, developer of specialized software for information security in the business. The same company to their activities to monitor the situation with leaks all over the world and makes a disappointing conclusion: over the years, things get worse. Sometimes leaks real hit:

In 2011, the United States National Health Service National Health Service has recognized a loss of the health records of more than 10 million patients, associated with the flash drive and system backup copies. Were lost including social security numbers, which are successfully used by local crooks in their criminal schemes.

On personal data and trade secrets, there is always a demand or by fraud, or by competitors. Interested parties willing to pay serious money, and for the cost of lost information could be the collapse of the business.

Do not think that such threats are relevant only for the "computer" companies. Valuable are personal data, customer lists and financial information, which is everywhere. Under attack absolutely any business:

Operatives of Federal Security Service of the Republic of Mordovia managed to stop the activity of a criminal group that engaged in the sale of confidential information "Trading house" Sevkabel Saransk "" competitors. They passed on information about the pricing policy of the company. With these data, competitors were able to adjust their prices and take away the "Saranskkabel 'major customers. Naturally, the company has been carrying serious losses. Attackers have received over the data of 200 million rubles. The company has lost much more.

Sometimes steal and purely technical information:

A resident of Naberezhnye Chelny, while the designer worked in a furniture factory, has received an offer he could not refuse. The young man received a 95 thousand rubles for the fact that a certain person had sold a flash drive to the base of drawings and sketches of factory production, where he worked.

According to Kelly Services authoritative market research firm, less than a third of all people in the world can be called loyal employees who are trying to prevent the loss of information and comply with the policy requirements security. The above example clearly demonstrates this, and he is not the only one:

First State Bank has opened two new offices in Kansas and choosing to staff, invited the best employees of a competing bank - Pulaski Bank. The offer was so attractive that invited staff actually changed jobs before the official dismissal. Using the confidential information of their employer, clerks entered into contracts with customers for the new bank. As it turned out, one employee had copied confidential information on a flash drive and threw off data that is not subject to disclosure, from a corporate to an external email address.

To me this will not happen!

This is the essence of "our" approach to business, because while the thunder breaks... The reality is: each protection is needed the company and the extent of the need is growing with the increasing influence of digital technologies in all spheres of our life.

It is foolish to hope that the problem will pass you side. You are at the workplace? Let's play a thief? Takes a USB flash drive, plugging into a computer, copying the client base, removing the stick and get out of the office. Who would notice? Who stops you? So can enroll any employee, including temporary, such as a cleaning lady, and the consequences affect everyone. Under suspicion will all have access to uplyvshim data.

And it's not so bad. Let's say you have copied the information in good faith - have decided to work with an important document at home. It would seem that! But now the stick makes such an extent that their pocket even find difficult. And if you happen to lose it, and it gets into the wrong hands?

How to cover his ass, and persuaded the chief to implement basic measures to protect corporate data? What if you are the leader and you want to protect your business? Here are some simple steps that will help solve the problem of flash drives.

Guide to action

1. If you are not a manager or business owner, you just show this article to your director. Rather, he is well aware of the connection information protection with finance and business protection, a hands did not reach. But since it was said to him by his staff (obviously, the responsible employees) ...

2. If you are a manager or business owner and seriously concerned about protecting sensitive data in your company, you need a comprehensive approachWhich will require considerable costs, changes in business processes, the introduction of the necessary arrangements, as well as bringing information security specialists and consultants. This is a sure and reliable way, but it is not the topic of this article.

3. What do you do if you are not willing to spend more on security, but would like to close are the 20% "holes", which generate 80% of the problems? After all, do bezopasnik confirm that the main principle of the protection of information is that the cost of it should not exceed the damage that can cause loss or theft of this information. To do this, there are simple to use and does not require much information protection costs:

1. Establish information security system on all company computers. Choose one that does not require complex implementation and staff expertise to support.
2. With this system, configure access rights to determine who can use flash drives for work, and who can not. It is important that the selected protection system is well integrated with your corporate network - you must have the ability to customize the right at the level of individual computers or employees, as well as at the group level and departments. You can do even more strict and allow to work only with certain enterprise flash drives.
3. Configure encryption mandatory information on a flash drive. Here again it is important not to make a mistake - Encryption should be "transparent", as experts say. That is, your employees do not have to ignore it - they just work with the stick, and the system automatically encrypts all information is recorded on it. Then the loss of the stick or the hard disk will not be the cause of your nightmares - information on them can not read a stranger.
4. Always make sure that you entered "draconian" measures do not interfere with the work of your employees remember the main principle of the protection of information. After a few adjustments, you will achieve the right balance between security and business flexibility. Just do not go on about the whiners who are suddenly deprived of the opportunity to carry on the work of recording movies or music on a flash drive.
5. Quietly continue to do business!

Of course, in addition to flash cards, there are other ways to lose information. For example, it has become very popular cloud storage, which successfully replace the ones stick. On them will be discussed in the next article.