Data Security in the Age of Cyber Threats 

Written by Marc A. Paolo, Managing Director, Client Success and HIPAA Privacy and Compliance Officer; and Sudarsana Roy Choudhury, Managing Director, Data Management

The term “data” refers to the collection of facts, statistics, and information used for analysis, reference, and decision-making. Data used and stored digitally is of a wide variety – personal, corporate, and retail are a few examples. Organizations use data in multiple ways to enable informed business decisions to align with their goals, objectives, and initiatives. Data is analyzed to be used in a wide variety of use cases – healthcare to improve patient treatment outcomes, retail to enable personalized sales, and hospitality to deliver personalized guest experiences, to name a few.   

The Challenge 

Data is being used widely, especially personal data, and as such, the need to protect against data vulnerability is stronger than ever. Unauthorized use of data is a reality, and hackers are continuously developing the tools to access data and use it to harm people and organizations. Sensitive data in the hands of such criminals can lead to major security incidents, known as data breaches. Data classification is a major step an organization can take to understand the risk and exposure based on the data it stores. Data in an organization can be classified into four major categories based on the sensitivity level: 

• Public  
• Internal  
• Sensitive or Confidential 
• Highly Confidential  

Data exposed at each sensitivity level also carries with it a level of impact; sensitivity level combined with the anticipated impact helps an organization develop a risk assessment. A data risk assessment facilitates efficient data management, making it easier to manage and protect data, ensuring resources are allocated effectively. 

Data classification positions an organization to manage data security risk. Some of the biggest data security risks can be categorized as follows: 

• Accidental data exposure 
• Insider threats 
• Phishing attacks 
• Malware 
• Ransomware 
• Cloud data storage breach 

Each incident of a cyberattack and a subsequent loss of data can have some very dire implications for a person and/or organization. Your data, in the hands of the wrong people, can be used maliciously to cause personal harm. Identity theft, emotional trauma, and reputational damage are just a few examples. For organizations, the loss could be in terms of business downtime, data loss, monetary loss, reputation impact, and legal consequences. The impact can be long-lasting and may even threaten the survival of the organization. 

How can data security be improved to minimize cyber threats? 

Organizations must ensure data security so that cyberattacks can be prevented and intercepted before they cause any harm. This is not only a technical solution. Enterprise data security measures fall into three categories: administrative, physical, and technical. A well-rounded information security program includes safeguards in all three categories, and such measures help address the prevention of cybercrimes. There are standards which indicate which measures should be in place to have what is considered a “strong” program; these include ISO/IEC 27001, NIST, SOC2, and HIPAA, among many others.   

• Administrative Measures include policies, procedures, and practices designed to manage and protect information systems. This includes training of employees on cybersecurity best practices to improve the strength of the “human firewall.” There are cyberthreats, such as phishing and social engineering, that a technical firewall cannot easily prevent, but knowledge about how to avoid falling prey to a phishing scheme can protect against such dangers. 
• Physical Measures include measures to protect data in electronic systems, equipment, and facilities from threats, environmental hazards, and unauthorized intrusion. A few common physical measures include physical locks and barriers, security guards, surveillance cameras, lockable cabinets and safes, fences, and lighting. 
• Technical Measures are the most obvious security safeguards that protect systems and data from unauthorized access, attacks, and other cyberthreats. Most people, when they think of data security, may think of “technical measures” first. These include encryption, access controls, data backup and disaster recovery, data loss prevention (DLP), and antivirus/anti-malware, to name just a few. 

How Fresh Gravity Ensures Data Security 

Fresh Gravity drives digital success for our clients by enabling them to adopt transformative technologies that make them nimble, adaptive, and responsive to the changing needs of their businesses. We enable our clients to achieve informed data-driven business outcomes by implementing Data Management, Analytics & ML, and Artificial Intelligence solutions. For all our solutions, we ensure that we adhere to the best practices of data security. We comply with the data security compliance requirements of our clients when implementing solutions for them. We also handle a lot of our clients’ data during analysis and implementation, so within Fresh Gravity, we have ensured that all the measures are strictly followed to ensure that the data is safe. Our team members’ data is also treated with the same level of security as our clients’ data. Fresh Gravity follows ISO27001 standards, and we have achieved a Silver certification by Cybervadis. We thus have a holistic Information Security Program in place to ensure maximum security and protection against cyber threats.