The Ways to Keep Sensitive Data Safe

Data is one of the fundamental concepts that have been included in every aspect of the life of the third wave (network) community by technological developments in digital transformation. Establishing the data stack management and safety has become an important part of running businesses and is highly critical for creating sustainable business models.

At this point, it is imperative to highlight that as the big data of businesses expand, so do the data masses that must be kept safe, since the lack of a hassle-free IT infrastructure for data safety may cause poor corporate image and serious financial loss.

The Cost of a Data Breach Report 2021 prepared by IBM offers striking answers regarding the question, "why is it important to keep sensitive data safe?" Based on the report, the total loss of business originating from data breaches in 2021 increased by 38% based on 2020 and losses increased from 1.52 million dollars to 1.59 million dollars.

On the other hand, the same report shows that the losses due to cyber threats caused by compromised identity data account for 20% of the losses. So, what can be done to establish an enhanced cyber security network in the business world where keeping sensitive data safe is important? Let's answer this step by step.

Step 1: Identification of Sensitive Data

Identifying sensitive data is prominent as a first step to protect the big data. To successfully identify the mentioned data stacks, you have to have the four basic information specified below.

• Physical and virtual servers where the sensitive data is stored
• Applications, users, and systems accessing sensitive data
• Users that must/must not have access to sensitive data
• Determining whether the sensitive data is under risk

You can access the solutions that you need for this identification and assessment process by the help of our Single Connect Privileged Access Management solution.

For instance, by utilizing the Database Access Manager module, you can supervise all users, even database managers, that have access to critical data in your IT infrastructure and control all access interactions. The Database Access Manager module serves as a strong shield to prevent breaches originating from users with privileged access.

Step 2: Monitoring Big Data Access

The second step indicates monitoring all operations in the database in real-time. Since the privileged users have direct access to the data in servers, focusing on the employees in this group may facilitate the steps of Privileged Access Management steps in full.

The Privileged Session Manager module by Single Connect helps you monitor the operations of authorized accounts. The mentioned module creates a full monitoring process via the statistics, video records, and logs taken from the users that have access to critical data fields.

Therefore, the entirety of the operations regarding privileged access is recorded. The Privileged Session Manager module offers a real central solution and thus effectively removes potential mix-ups that may be experienced regarding access management. Since all privileged operations regarding access requests and movements can be monitored with the mentioned module of our Single Connect application, you may detect several confusing processes beforehand and effectively control the sessions in the network.

Step 3: Protection Against Cyber Threats

Identifying the sensitive data and the monitoring phase will help you to access detailed information regarding possible cyber threats and breaches. However, as a second step, you must act to protect your business against cyber threats. In this phase, you can adopt four different actions based on the source of the threat and the type of data.

• Prevent access to critical data: Privileged Task Automation module of Single Connect offers help to regulate the workflows in the network thanks to its dynamically customized and expandable script sets. The module ensures automatic completion of daily recurring workflows and minimizes user errors in breaches against data access.
• Mask data: For this process, the related data should be replaced with fictional data and be masked to control access to critical data. While masking data, make sure that the reference and statistical integrity are preserved. For this purpose, the Dynamic Data Masking module of Single Connect does not offer sensitive data to privileged users while accessing the database, but rather offers realistic data as masked and fictional data.
• Cease the operations of risky users: You may quarantine the users that wish to access data outside their level of access in the network without disabling and preventing unauthorized operations of the accounts in question and thus facilitate your data protection efforts.
• Realize preventive actions: By sending additional warnings to establish access security, you can trigger a series of events that may help realize the preventive actions. For instance, by adopting solutions such as Dynamic Password Controller and applications such as password vault, you can protect the passwords for privileged accounts with multi-layered and multi-factor authentication security measures and control the privileged access to sensitive data.

If you want to establish an end-to-end data security, follow one of the practical methods to keep sensitive data safe and go to Magic Quadrant for PAM report issued by Gartner, and review our Single Connect product for one of the most advanced PAM solutions in the world.

To learn more about our cyber security applications in finance, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, and public sectors, you can contact us and our team of experts will be more than happy to answer your questions.