Data breach, when simply put means, any confidential information accessed without any prior or authorized permission of an individual or a company at large. “. According to Juniper Research, “cybercrimes have accounted for trillions of dollars in losses”. The amount in the year 2019 alone was $2 trillion. Whether the breach has occurred on an individual level or at a company level, the damage it costs is severe.

Companies may experience trust issues with their employees and clients. And in the worst-case scenario, they might go out of business due to wrong exposure, financial, and goodwill damages. A 2019 Cost of a Data Breach Report stated, “the average total cost of a data breach in the U.S has grown from $3.54 million in 2006 to $8.19 million in 2019”. This means it has taken a 130% increase over 14 years, which is huge!

Modernization and Globalisation have led to an increase in data breaches across the globe. Even after taking all the necessary precautions, these numbers are not decreasing. Also, the duration between the breach and its reporting time is such that most damages have already taken place. To back this up, security intelligence vendor Risk-Based Security conducted a report that cites, “the average number of data when a breach was discovered and reported was nearly 50 days in 2018”.

During such cases, you can implement the following strategies to protect your sensitive data from getting exposed to the wrong hands.

Figure out A Third-Party Security Software:

Today, if the data breach industry has become huge then so has the data protection industry. With the availability of various software on the go, it becomes quite challenging to select the right one. Everyone has a different security need and therefore, the software one chooses for itself has to be an all-rounder. ACT Shield is one such security program that not only protects you against data breach but also helps you against trojans, ransomware on the various multi-device and multi-operating systems.

“In the year 2019, First American Financial Corp. had 885 million records exposed online including bank transactions, social security numbers and more”. This may be the downside of opting for poor security software. ACT Shield secures all your banking transactions and helps you in surfing the internet and various websites safely. It is a full proof package of security against data breach in this digital age.

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Avoid What You Don’t Need:

Data collection is a necessity as everything can be accessed on the internet today. However, collecting and storing any data that you don’t need opens the gate to mass exposure. In the year 2019, “Facebook had 540 million user records exposed on the Amazon cloud server”. Limit your information to what is required and get rid of any unnecessary data. Another step could be, using data encrypted transmission. This protects the data from the danger of being exposed to third parties while being shared. Remember to have copies hard or soft of sensitive data. And above all, it is mandatory to use authentic security software.

Rely on A Virtual Private Network:

VPN aids in providing a private gateway to any public network. To avoid data breaches especially while using public WiFi and networks, you should always use a VPN. This becomes more important whenever you are traveling. The best way to keep it covered is by keeping a unique password and not re-using a password again. Also, ensure to fully control all the network access.

Teach Yourself the Process:

In most data breach cases, people open an email unknowingly that contains the virus. This can be the stepping-stone of any kind of data theft. Therefore, you should not use any public network or server that is poorly protected. Also, it is advisable to change the passwords for various online platforms every three months. ACT Shield software prompts a notification if an email has a virus or unknown information that can affect the system. This notification alerts the email receiver that aids in avoiding a data breach.

Winding-Up:

The data breach is one such problem that needs an immediate solution. With the increasing numbers, it is extremely important for us to comprehend our working systems and rectify the loopholes with feasible software solutions as soon as possible.