Author: Jane Devry

Source

Keeping information secure from any theft activities in the digital world is necessary. But unfortunately, with everything going online, the digital world seems to be just as dangerous as the real world, especially when storing your personal information. 

These issues will often arise when a company fails to ensure proper security measures and when companies don’t process sensitive data properly. You would be surprised that only in the United States, 67% of users don’t actually even know about any data privacy rules. 

Well, let’s not wait any further because, in this article, we will find out how companies process sensitive data and why it’s essential. 

How do companies process sensitive data, and why is it essential to do so? 

Employee data 

 

Employee data is quite similar to customer data. Similarly, you have to gather their name, addresses, social security numbers, and even banking information. Moreover, this is considered sensitive information and is an essential part of the organization to store it.

Employee data and any other sensitive data stored within an organization can cause huge issues. For instance, imagine some hacker breaks into your database and hacks all of your private employer data; this won’t only cost and disturb individual lives but also cost you financially and even cost your brand reputation. 

 

GDPR and CPRA compliance 

The GDPR and CPRA are both the largest privacy policies globally and have brought many amendments to the private data world. Hence, the GDPR accounts for all companies doing business within EU borders or residing in it. On the other hand, the CPRA holds companies accountable within Californian borders and those who do business within these borders. If you want to learn more about the CPRA, you can check more about Osano’s information on the CPRA. 

Moreover, since more people are using the internet each year, there is also more data being stored, which means that we must comply with privacy regulations. Every country worldwide has its own privacy policies, and those who don’t follow them will usually face huge fines and lose their level of brand reputation. 

Note: here is an example of a privacy policy regarding how a company collects private data. 

Private data is starting to become global

Even though we mentioned the CRPA and GDPR, it doesn’t mean they are the only privacy policies globally. One of the primary ones is also located in China, Saudi Arabia, Canada, India, and Australia. As for now, China and Saudi Arabia have approved a new privacy law passed only last year. 

Moreover, global privacy control (GPC) is becoming quite strict in the real world, and to be honest, there are always new questions regarding it. However, some privacy regulators don’t fully agree with the idea of consumers fully regulating their data on their own whenever they visit a brand new website. 

The GPC wishes to create brand new data functions and standards that won’t complicate any processes for consumers or companies trying to comply with privacy policies. Moreover, each country worldwide has its own privacy regulations and different approaches to privacy data. 

You know better than us when you receive a promotional email with your private data. This occurs when you visit a new site and accept cookies from them. However, even when you receive emails, you have the chance to unsubscribe from these emails and request these sites to remove your personal data from their site entirely. 

In short, privacy policies are amended each year, and we must comply with new regulations each time they are approved. 

Companies must know where their data is 

An essential step in providing adequate data protection is knowing what kind of data is being stored and where. When you succeed in identifying this, you can make better-informed decisions regarding measures that need to be taken to protect this type of data. 

Many large organizations worldwide use data discovery tools to scan company networks to see if they possess any sensitive data. Whenever they find out that this company doesn’t have the right to keep this type of data, they’ll delete it or encrypt it. Since there is a rise in privacy policy compliance requirements, controls are also rising. 

Intellectual property and trade secrets 

Almost every company worldwide has proprietary information stored in its database, and it comes in different forms. For instance, it can be stored with a third party or in a document management system. 

Taking the example of sensitive data, it also includes data regarding product specifications, competitive research, and more. Moreover, when you have a third party storing your sensitive data, it may sometimes be an issue. Why so? Because if that data gets breached, it’ll affect you as well, which can turn catastrophic quite quickly! 

Cloud data protection 

You may commonly hear about data being migrated to the cloud; however, there are many rises in concerns about this. While cloud-based storage does pass all the green lights on security checks, many large companies still feel that data isn’t fully secure when stored, thus, making organizations and companies feel insecure. 

Standard practices large organizations use are tools firmly specialized in cloud data protection or even encrypting sensitive data before it’s transferred to the cloud. 

Industry-focused data

Source

Depending on the industry you are operating in, there are many examples of sensitive data you are required to protect. For example, those in the retail sector need to focus on protecting their customers’ payment data; a marketing agency needs to focus on protecting the data of their clients, and more. 

You need to know that customers most of the time aren’t aware that they provided you with their personal information. For instance, customers may not know that their data is stored through a third party, and may be more at stake. 

For example, Facebook in the UK was recently sued for exploiting the private data of more than 44 million users. Hence, The social media giant had to pay a fine of more than two billion pounds! 

Educating employees on sensitive data

If you are running a large organization or company, it’s more important to have your employees know about how sensitive data is processed within the organization than anything else. In fact, according to a study by Forbes, 85% of data breaches included some human aspect to it, meaning that it could be someone within the organization who did it. 

Most large corporations worldwide continuously inform their employees about data breaches and have internal security policies, providing them with clear instructions, guidelines, and even training to ensure they are not going against the organization’s rules concerning private data. 

Organizations will tend to use data loss prevention software to ensure enforcement and restrict unauthorized access to sensitive data. Moreover, the levels of sensitive data can be controlled by specific users within the organization. Hence, sometimes data breaches might not be an external threat but an internal one. However, the key to protecting sensitive data is the proper member training, and here are a few ways you can do so: 

 

  • Share your data security policy with your employees: it’s essential that your employees know your data security policy and comply with security standards when handling this data.

  • Post reminders: set reminders about data security policies whenever sensitive information is used. 

  • Give rewards: whenever you see that your team feels better about their hard work, give them a reward when they comply with data privacy regulations within the organization. 

  • Give warnings: you never know when the next data breach might happen, but before anything happens, warn your employees what happens if they violate security policies and take action if they fail to do so. 

Case study: The prosecution of AA Ireland Limited 

In late 2017, an individual filed a complaint to the DPC against AA Ireland Limited for receiving suspicious marketing text messages. Simultaneously, he informed the DPC that he had only recently had a motor insurance renewal quotation from his current insurer but was looking for a more competitive one. The company he found was AA Ireland Limited. 

 

Moreover, the agent from AA Ireland Limited promised that the individual’s data wouldn’t be used for any marketing purposes. Furthermore, while discussing with the agent from AA Ireland Limited, the individual found out that the quotation was much higher than the one from his current insurance company. Thus, his final choice was that he wouldn’t proceed any further with the quotation offered from AA Ireland Limited. What was the leading complaint? The individual told the DPC that he informed AA Ireland Limited that he longer wanted to receive any marketing promotional messages after his final decision. 

 

However, even after he filed a complaint, AA Ireland Limited continued to send promotional messages, mentioning that they offered a discount on their quote. This continued to happen even one day after. Moreover, the individual didn’t respect this and said that it was a breach of their promise since it happened after he filed a complaint. 

 

Furthermore, AA Ireland Limited agreed that they had breached the complainant’s request and should not have sent a promotional message after it. However, the DPC had previously warned them too many times, and this was the last strike. So, the DPC decided to take measures and initiated prosecution proceedings against AA Ireland Limited. Thus, AA Ireland Limited had to pay fines and cover prosecution costs according to the Probation of Offenders Act. 

Under which conditions do companies process sensitive data? 

 

To better answer these questions, we will take the GDPR as an example. Here is the following condition in which the GDPR allows you to process sensitive data: 

 

  • The collective agreement requires your company to process data following GDPR regulations and even for individuals regarding social security, social protection law, and employment fields. 

  • Interests of the person or a person who is legally or physically incapable of giving consent are at risk.

  • You are a non-profit organization or foundation with a political or religious purpose that processes data about your members or those in regular contact with your organization. 

  • Data gathered is processed for medical purposes, medical diagnoses, and more.

  • Data is processed for public interest purposes in public health in compliance with the EU and national law. 

  • Data is processed for historical or scientific research cases or even statistical ones. 

To read more about national law privacy laws, you can click here. 

Wrapping it up 

That’s all for this article. This was our full explanation of how companies process sensitive data and why it’s essential to do so, especially in this day of age. Private data has never been more important and has never required so much compliance. Overall, the digital world is changing quickly, and requirements to adapt to it are becoming more strict. 

Since there are more users on the web, getting sensitive data stolen also increases. After all, your organization is held accountable for any fraudulent activities with sensitive data. Thus, it isn’t easy to deal with it, especially if you fail to comply with them and have to pay hefty fines after!  

Take into account what kind of data you store, educate your employees about it, and monitor what is done with the data. The last thing you want to happen with your information is for it to be stolen and sold to a third party! 

 

 

 

The post How do Companies Process Sensitive Data and Why is That Important? appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

Source

Cyber attackers, fraudsters, and hackers target both small-scale, midsized, and large online ecom enterprises. 

 

In fact, the frequency of small businesses fraud is at 28% compared to larger organizations at 22-26%. 

This portrays a grim picture for ecommerce businesses — filled with data breaches and irate customers. Again, if you  don’t secure your clients’ data, you can end up losing their trust, income, and maybe have your brand tarnished. 

Whenever it concerns protecting your company against frauds, though, there’s no shortage of activities to watch out for. 

However, the  multitude of cyber threats, along with a massive cost to address cyber-crimes, would be enough to scare you from quitting. 

To avoid being attacked, ensure that your workers are well-informed and trained on the most frequent kinds of attacks that could harm your company’s reputation. 

With this insight, your staff can take additional actions to guarantee that your clients’ personal information is protected to the best of their ability.

5 powerful approaches to protect your ecom business from online fraud

According to research, frauds and cyber attacks are among the top three threats weighing on the US business environment – with a weightage of 65%. 

As per our research, here are five tried-and-tested techniques to protect your ecommerce digital business from dangerous online frauds.

  1. Share your online store’s policies and run a test payment

To guarantee that both your business and your buyers will be in agreement right from the beginning, clearly publish your shipping terms, return guidelines, and service terms and conditions on your site before you begin accepting conversions and sales. 

 

By answering these questions, a return guideline can help manage client expectations:

  • What is the time limit for a customer to return items?

  • The process for returning or exchanging items.  How do clients get in touch with your team and how much time does it take?

  • Who is responsible for returning stuff to you?

  • Are any things, like discounted items or products which have been damaged or used, not returnable?

  • Is it possible to get a complete refund, an alternative, or a shop credit?

Again, make a trial payment to see what data you have access to. Prior to shipping out items, you should evaluate your user’s details to ensure that the transaction is genuine. 

Understanding where to look for refused eCommerce payments and client data ahead of time will help you speed up the review procedure.

  1. Create strong passwords

Although it is your firm’s obligation to keep user data secure at the back-end, there are several ways you can use to assist customers by mandating a minimal level of special characters, as well as the usage signs or numerals. 

 

The usage of complex passwords on a terminal network security can impede or even defeat different attack tactics. Short and easy passwords, for instance, are fairly effortless for hackers to ascertain, which might lead to your business becoming a target of fraud. 

 

Such attacks typically entail business, manufacturing, ecologic, or economic disciplines that drop beyond the standard bounds of a fraud. The following are some of the most popular techniques fraudsters use to find a victim’s passcodes:

 

  • Guessing – When an intruder attempts to log into a customer’s profile by predicting probable words or phrases frequently.

  • Online attacks — Automatic programs that try to log into the system over and over again, utilizing different terms from the word documents each time.

 

Internet scammers are cunning criminals. They take full advantage of folks who might not be aware of how to safeguard themselves using their tremendous computer skills. As already explained, user passwords are one of their preferred sources of data. 

 

Fraudsters have equipment that can break a 6-digit passcode in seconds. Try using  an 8-character or longer alphanumeric passcode with a minimum one uppercase character plus a special character to ensure that your password is as secure as possible.

  1. Use fraud prevention software

Source 

 

Bot traffic to mobile applications account for a huge chunk of all bot traffic worldwide. Bots and fraudsters will locate the weak points in your architecture.

 

Hence, protecting your firm from internet scams as well as bot attacks necessitates a coherent layer of safety across all of your end nodes — your mobile app, internet site, and APIs all need to be protected at the very same level.

 

eCommerce fraud prevention tools process information from clients and servers in real time. Each request into your mobile applications, webpages, and APIs is evaluated and forced to submit to a mix of AI and ML software to decide if access should really be allowed or not.

 

Scraping, identity fraud, vulnerability analysis, Layer 7 DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), and other methods are used by fraud prevention software as well. 

 

They provide unrivaled visibility into all of these risks, with dedicated KPIs, the capacity to evaluate live traffic statistics, as well as real-time attack findings and alerts for all interested parties.

 

The false positive percentage for full-fledged fraud protection software is extremely low. This proportion is visible on the dashboards for each end – point: mobile apps, sites, and APIs, and it’s analyzed in real time. 

 

By nature, each endpoint’s responding approach and blocking plus challenging methods are customized. Your company is safe, and your genuine customers have a great time.

  1. Incorporate strong verification protocols

Although digital purchases do not necessitate a sign for verification, a good way to ensure that the transaction is genuine is to verify that the customer’s shipping and billing addresses are identical. 

 

In the case of a conflict, the card provider might also want to verify that the payment was finished by the appropriate account holder on your online platform. They may request evidence that the purchased product was delivered to the right billing address.

 

If you get an order with incorrect addresses, contact the client to find out why. It could be a practical cause, including a present being sent. 

 

Anything out of the ordinary, like a gifting order with multiple sets of the same product or a massive commercial order getting transported to a household, should be questioned. 

 

Consumers who request that a purchase be rushed should be approached with caution; it could imply that they are in a rush to wrap up the purchase prior to the stolen card details being reported.

 

You can choose how much risk you’re prepared to take. Some suppliers refuse foreign deliveries or odd orders, whereas others look at each transaction individually. 

 

Keep in mind that you’re fully responsible for all online payments made via your accounts, so double-checking orders ahead of time might save you money in the long run.

Verify that there are no software injection, encryption, and authentication attacks.

  1. Injection frauds

Injection frauds can result in loss of data, corruption of data, suspension of service, and even total host invasion. Injection issues are relatively straightforward for fraudsters to identify and occur often.

 

First, unverified data is entered into a web app and then it tricks that software into accepting commands. In this manner, the attacker gains access to your personal data. you ca address this issue by embedding an API software.

 

Also, regularly update your web applications since outdated software are specifically prone to injection threats.

  1. Encryption treats

To safeguard personal details from phishing scams, all information that passes between a firm’s web server and a site for consumers should always be encrypted. For e-com sites, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) verification is a must-have. 

 

SSL encrypts personal data like credit card numbers and credentials and safeguards it while it moves across the internet. The SSL certificate protects the information from cyber-attacks and thieves by making it inaccessible to everyone except the intended receiver.

  1. Authentication frauds

Authentication frauds are common, and they can give hackers a legitimate user on whom to launch an attack.

 

To mimic users, fraudsters make use of unprotected user profiles, weak passcodes, or verification weaknesses. The password policy, logout, privacy, and account upgrade functions, among other things, all have issues.

 

To keep your sensitive data safe from hackers, you’ll need a solid combination of verification and administrative abilities. Furthermore, several services monitor your logs for unsuccessful login attempts and will restrict Ips with a high number of failed tries.

  1. Monitor paper trails and card declines

Keeping solid records is always a good idea in organizations, but it’s more important when products and/or services are traded on the internet. 

 

If a consumer files a complaint, your only option is to show documentation that the purchase was completed.

 

Prepare all supporting documentation for a questioned purchase so that you are able to fight the allegation with the recipient’s bank on their behalf. 

 

Keep records of your shipment and delivery data. Use built-in ecom tools to preserve shipping and fulfillment information for quick retrieval. Big orders should need a sign upon delivery. 

 

Keep any emails between your business and your buyer for 24 months and itemize your invoices to demonstrate conclusively what was bought.

 

Again, purchases that appear out of place, either spatially or thematically, versus other card activities are declined through credit card providers. 

 

You can look into your personal denied payment history to see whether there’s an issue.

 

When you obtain a new purchase request — especially if it’s a sizable payment — go to your sales history and check the status. Search for payments that have been denied for the same sum in a brief span of time.

 

Multiple declines could indicate that your credit card details have been hacked and are being utilized in a fraud. If you receive repeated rejections on separate cards, you should wait to mail the item until you can contact the buyer and confirm their identification.

Conclusion

Finally, make sure that you and whoever else is managing your website is following it up plus that you have a disaster strategy in place if things do not go as planned. 

To ensure that your website is correctly managed, perform regular backups or verify that your web host does so.

The post 5 Ways to Protect Your Ecommerce Business appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.