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Data breaches seem to be happening more and more to the point that they aren’t at all surprising anymore. Data thieves do not discriminate, and they target both small and large organizations. A data breach is an incident where data is accessed without authorization. This breach is harmful to any organization; it harms the reputation and can potentially damage lives, making it challenging to repair.

It seems we hear about data breaches all the time, but is this very surprising? As technology becomes more prominent in our daily lives, cyber hacks have become more common.

Wondering just how dangerous these data breaches are? A study by the Ponemon Institute found that the total cost of a data breach is $3.86 million.  Considering how costly data breaches are, you should always be on the look-out and do everything you can to prevent a data breach. Here’s what you need to know about protecting yourself from data breaches:

How Data Breaches Happen

Cybercrime happens to be a profitable venture for hackers, and as the digital world progresses, data crimes will only continue to grow. These attackers are looking for personal information, mostly financial information so that they can steal money, take on a new identity or sell the information to the dark side of the internet. Data breaches can happen for several reasons but here are the most common:

  • Weak Passwords: Everyone has passwords for almost everything nowadays. Naturally, we want to create a password that is easy to remember because we have so many. However, an easy password is an attacker’s aspiration. Easy passwords are simple for hackers to guess. Please do yourself a favor and choose a complex password and write it down. This way you can rest assured knowing the likelihood of data getting into the wrong hands is less likely.
  • Drive-by Downloads: There are several people out there that don’t pay that much attention to what they are downloading on their computers. All it takes, however, is a download mistake for hackers to get into your information. Drive-by downloads take advantage of any browser, application or operating system that is out of date or has a security weakness.
  • Targeted Malware Attacks: You may know by now not to open up links from emails that are not a trusted source. These attackers will use email as a way to trick the user into giving away its user credentials, downloading attachments, or clicking on links to untrusted websites. These emails can be tricky and might even seem like it’s coming from a trusted source.
  • Exploiting System Vulnerabilities: If your computer has out of date software, this makes it easy for a hacker to come in and sneak malware onto your computer so they can steal data.

How to Protect Your Data

We recommend keeping your software up to date, creating strong passwords, and avoiding any untrusted emails. However, this is not all you can do. Attackers are getting more creative when it comes to ways that they can get a hold of your information. That’s why in addition to doing all of the simple protections, you should have self-protecting data as an extra layer of security.

Self-protecting data is files or folders that can understand who can have access to them and who cannot. This self-protecting data can instantly provide access or, if it gets into the wrong hands, it can quickly deny access. Want to know more about how this works? Schedule a demo, and we will show you how data can protect itself.

Self-Protecting Data in The Healthcare Industry

Access to a healthcare facility’s data is a hacker’s dream. Depending on the quality of information that is collected, records can sell on the dark web for nearly $1,000. It’s no surprise that millions of records are exposed each year from healthcare facilities. In 2018, the healthcare industry saw that 15 million patient records were compromised in 503 breaches which were three times the amount we saw in 2017. In 2019, those numbers skyrocketed and in the coming years, you can expect hacking to become an even bigger issue for large corporations such as hospitals.

With Sertainty’s SPD Utility (SPD-U), your data would be able to identify when it was in the hands of the wrong person and would delete themselves, so the patient’s personal identifying data is protected.

Patients put their trust in healthcare facilities to keep their personal information safe. Sometimes, regardless of how secure we think we are keeping the data, it ends up getting stolen. Sertainty can’t guarantee that the files won’t get taken but, if the records are stolen, we can assure you that the data will know it’s in the wrong people and will delete itself.

Not only do healthcare facilities have access to personal information such as contact information, credit card information and social security information, but they also have access to many patients past, present and future information on an individual’s physical or mental health condition and data relating to the provision of healthcare or the payment for their healthcare services. This is where a data breach raises considerable concern. A HIPAA violation can result in a lawsuit that may result in severe consequences such as financial penalties of up to 1.5 million dollars per year.

As a healthcare facility, part of its duty is to share information with others such as other doctors, laboratories, and so on. So how can you trust that the information you send to others that you collaborate with is in the hands of someone you can trust?

Sertainty: Providing you with a level of comfort

Self-protecting data will be able to identify whom it can trust and who might be harmful. At that point, the data deletes itself, so no information is in the file. This self-protecting data will give you the level of comfort you need so you can continue sharing data with those that you trust.

At Sertainty, we can provide you with the level of comfort you need so you can continue with your day-to-day tasks without the worry of a data breach in the back of your mind. The answer? Self-protecting data. Schedule a demo to learn more about how your data can protect itself.