Data Security Best Practices: 7 Tips to Crush Bad Actors

In today’s hyper-connected world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ensure your data is protected. With users accessing networks from multiple locations, data passing through unpredictable endpoints, and a rampant increase in cybercrime, establishing and maintaining data security best practices has never been more important.

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 2,365 cyber attacks in 2023, a 72% increase over 2021. With the average cost of a data breach in 2024 coming in at $4.88 million, ensuring your data is protected just makes good business sense. With all of that in mind, we’ll cover seven data security best practices that you can adopt to help keep your network secure.

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Data security best practices

Even with the best security solutions, a breach can happen. These data security best practices will help ensure that even if someone does breach your network, the damage they can cause will be minimal.

Encryption

With many organizations' endpoints residing outside the secure network perimeter, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure the sanctity of data. When data can be accessed from anywhere, the likelihood that it will be accessed by bad actors increases. Enterprise digital rights management (EDRM) is a solution that can help ensure your data is only used by those who are authorized to use it.

Like its namesake, DRM, EDRM limits data access through encryption. It encrypts data in real time as it is accessed, ensuring that only those for whom it is intended can access it. When utilized as part of a comprehensive security service edge (SSE) solution, EDRM can dynamically determine who’s accessing data, whether they are authorized, and make decisions based on an organization’s security policies. 

Data loss prevention (DLP)

When you have a lot of data, it can be a challenge to determine what’s sensitive and what isn’t. Data loss prevention (DLP) is a methodology for managing data with a focus on preventing loss through theft or other bad actions. It involves technologies and processes that index, monitor, and control sensitive data. 

Administrators use DLP tools to set rules defining what is or isn’t sensitive data. That data is then monitored to determine how it's used within an organization, classified to ensure it is properly sequestered, and encrypted to prevent leakage, whether intentional or unintentional.    

Organizations may use DLP to comply with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS. 

Data backups

Backing up data can help protect it in the event of a breach. Having a clean, encrypted, offsite store of data can help make recovery faster and more complete. It is also simply good practice.

Anything can happen to your data. Weather emergencies, fire, or other accidents can jeopardize even the most secure data storage. Having backup data stored in separate locations ensures your data will not be lost when the unthinkable happens.

Data masking

It’s simply not possible to encrypt all data all the time. When building new technology and tools, application developers often need workable data to test their solutions. Using sensitive data for testing can expose it to bad actors or misuse.

Data masking is a method of creating fake but usable data. The fake data can be used just like real data without the threat of exposing any sensitive information. Any data that does leak is harmless.  

Access best practices

The best way to ensure your data isn’t stolen or misused by bad actors is to keep them from getting to it in the first place. These access protocols will help you limit who has access to your network and control their privileges while they are in your network. 

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is used to further secure password-protected data or apps. It’s an effective way of ensuring that only those who are authorized can access protected data, and helps protect against instances of credential theft.

With MFA, a user will be prompted to use multiple methods of authentication after entering their password. Often, this is a code sent to their mobile device or generated by an authentication app.

Zero-trust adoption

Traditional network security protocols assume that once a user is inside the perimeter, they belong there, and are no longer challenged. Zero-trust security does the opposite. Using the mantra “never trust, always verify,” zero-trust is constantly monitoring and reauthenticating users throughout their presence on sensitive networks. 

Your privileges will be limited to only what you need to do your work. Network security protocols will continuously monitor your presence to ensure you are not taking actions for which you are not authorized. Zero trust is an essential practice for anyone looking to address modern cybersecurity threats.

User activity monitoring

In line with zero trust security, user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA), is a cybersecurity practice for monitoring the behavior of users who visit your network. By constantly monitoring users’ behavior, from opening or modifying files, downloading or uploading data, or the locations from which they log on, UEBA builds a model of predicted behavior for each user.

While it may be possible for a bad actor to steal a user’s credentials, they can’t easily replicate that user’s typical behavior. UEBA will spot deviations from the predicted pattern of behavior so that security professionals can address potential threats. UEBA can also detect if a verified user is behaving in ways that may present a risk, through intentional or unintentional behavior.  

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Secure your data with Lookout

Modern cybersecurity risks require a modern cybersecurity approach. The Lookout Cloud Security Platform is an SSE solution designed to close the gaps in modern, cloud-connected networks, securing your data and apps. By consolidating key cloud security capabilities into a single solution, SSE protects users from malicious web content, prevents data loss, and provides continuous zero-trust access. Learn more today.

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