Few people want to admit that no form of digital communication can ever be considered truly secure. Most netizens are likely to have an account for some useful service that could be leaking their data to the world. Whether due to a poor endpoint strategy on behalf of a vendor or a sketchy privacy policy that permits information to be released, there’s always some risk.
Take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the most common breaches. Once you understand what causes data leak vulnerabilities, you can develop an actionable plan to put a stop to them.
Why Third-party Providers Pose an Unseen Risk
If you use any kind of cloud service, then data you send over a network is fair game for third-party providers in the supply chain. Take team collaboration tools for instance. Many companies use these tools to keep development teams in touch with each other, and they generally log all communications sent through them.
Privacy policies would prevent any data leaks from these kinds of tools in a perfect world. However, few companies take care of all their hosting and data processing tasks themselves. They usually contract with a virtual hosting agent to get storage space on a remote server. While your data should be encrypted when it’s stored on said server, administrators at the hosting service might be able to access it.
Hosting providers make regular backup copies of their entire virtual file systems, which include any data you’ve stored on them. These backups might languish somewhere for an untold amount of time. Even if you delete something you’ve stored remotely, you can’t be sure that the backup ever gets zeroed out.
Cybersecurity firms, big data analysis companies and many other vendors are often part of the overall supply chain as well. Assuming that all of these vendors are trustworthy and have no malicious intent, there’s still a risk that an attack on one of the links in the chain could cause some of your information to leak into the public sphere. Each additional service provider is one more opportunity for crackers to have a look at your information.
Data Leak Vulnerabilities Out in the Open
Some issues are much more obvious. Slack, for instance, got exposed to a vulnerability in 2014 that permitted unauthorized access of user accounts. The company admitted the breach and later repaired it, but there’s a good chance similar exploits exist that haven’t been patched.
Most server structures run at least some code that hasn’t been fully audited, which increases this risk considerably. In the worst case scenario, employees from a service you have an account with can go rogue and leak data for profit. Internal staff have access to customer data and can’t always be trusted. One report claimed that employees of Amazon were accepting bribes in exchange for leaking internal sales metrics and customer contact details.
Lack of Accountability
One of the biggest concerns is an overall lack of accountability, which is especially true of web services that casually collect user information. Large companies like VTech as well as several small businesses have had to settle lawsuits because they failed to protect data they collected. Customers don’t even always know if their data is getting collected. Software updates needed to protect stored information on the server level are often never installed.
Developing a Stronger Endpoint Strategy
Fortunately, you can put your plan into action to protect your data. Limiting the number of services you share your data with is perhaps the best way to reduce the number of data leak vulnerabilities you’re exposed to. This generally isn’t practical. Application whitelisting might be an option, since you can use this kind of technology to decide exactly what services can run locally at any given time.
Consider investing in a VPN. Any vulnerabilities related to your network provider can usually be eliminated by tunneling traffic through one. Make sure you go with a reputable provider that doesn’t suffer from any third-party pitfalls. Likewise, don’t feel that investing in many different security tools is the way to go when this could theoretically expose you to untrustworthy connections. It’s wiser to select a few tools you’ll regularly use.
Keep in mind that there’s no need to panic. Corporate data leaks are serious business. Putting a plan into action today, however, will ensure that you don’t have to worry about them tomorrow.