Data Leakage

Data Leakage

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Introduction

Data leakage entails transmitting data or information from an enterprise to an external recipient in an unauthorized manner.  During the conduction of business transactions, it is likely that sensitive information will have a transfer to people that should not access it. The sharing of data with other business partners may also take place, and that can make the data or information to face a risk of being used in a manner that can encourage inappropriate usage. It is essential that the incidents that can encourage data leakage be identified and then addressed appropriately for the purpose of making sure that an organization’s confidential or sensitive data does not get to unintended recipients. Firms need to leverage a more data-centric approach to protecting their critical data so that they can ensure that there is the safeguarding of the integrity of the data.

How Data Leakage Occurs in Organizations

The leakage of data via the misuse of the data in organizations or the vulnerabilities that is present with the hardware, platforms or software that is being use. When information on the database has no enough protection of security mechanisms set, it is prone to finding its way to unauthorized parties.  Sometimes the database administrators carelessly store the password files without the proper security enhancements hence making it for the third parties to access the password file which they can then use to accomplish their ill motives in a company’s information systems.  Also, data leakage can occur as a result of a user accidentally deleting given file or data.  Sometimes also, updates can be made on the data without first understanding how the updating will affect the data.

The employees of an organization may also lack enough training on how they should handle emails from unknown parties. Because of that knowledge they open emails from sources of which they are not aware, thus restyling to data leakage. When a person downloads software from the Web and then installs it, if the software contains malware, and the user’s machine does not have some anti-malware software installed, data leakage occurs. Data leakage can also take place when the stealing of devices with sensitive information is stolen. Also, the other way that data leakage occurs is via the implementation of not-tech methods like shoulder surfing that allows persons to access an enterprise's network directly.

Common Causes of Data

1.    Theft of Computers

The theft of computers or other devices that have sensitive data is one of the common causes of data leakage. When one leaves a computer or other devices unattended to, another person with ill intentions can take advantage and steal the computer, sensitive data or both (Filkins & Radcliff, 2008). The problem will be heightened when there is a lack of a proper backup for the data that has been lost.

2.    Cyber Terrorism

Cyber terrorism is another common cause of data leakage.  Modern terrorists are leveraging the loopholes present in a company’s information system to steal sensitive data from the companies.  The fact that organizations are depending on societies for information technology, that in turn has created some form of vulnerability that provides the terrorists a chance of approaching agents like banking and financial systems (Kamaresan, 2014). There have been reports of organized crimes whereby the attackers approach private companies and steal vital data or assets that contain crucial data.

3.    Manipulation

The other common cause of data leakage is the case whereby criminals manipulate the employees of an organization to provide them with sensitive data that they want to access in the organization.  Those criminals normally approach the staffs that are working on the sensitive data systems. Sometimes also, employees can be cheated to providing some vital information without the knowledge that they are giving information to somebody with ill intentions.

How to Prevent Data Leakage

Handle Data According to Culture and Classification

The environment can influence the way data is being handled. The stemming of data leakage starts by having an understanding of the type as well as the form of critical information, its location, and the way the information flows within an organization (Anjali et al., 2013). That should then be followed by a data map that takes into consideration the data at rest and in transit.  The knowledge of the actual picture of the data for the enterprise can help in figuring out how the handling of that information can take place and mitigate leakage (Khan, 2013).

Design a training program for Employees

A firm should ensure there is properly designed employee training program for education the workers on the patterns of preventing and developing the needed awareness (Khan, 2013).  That awareness pertains to the identification of sensitive data, the transfer of the same through email, information management and snail mails (Anjali et al., 2013).  The workers should understand the value of data include the way they should handle it for the purpose of making sure that leakage is eliminated or minimized.

Implementation of Controls for Detecting and Preventing Data Leakage

An organization should be sure to set controls that can enforce leakage data procedures, policies as well as best practices (Kamaresan, 2014).  Those controls may be administrative, physical or technical. Those should have integration with the proper data security tools so as to make the prevention as comprehensive as possible. There should be controls at the perimeter level such as outbound filtering, audit, and encryption so as to prevent unauthorized e-mailing, backing up, of downloading of applications (Khan, 2013).

References

Filkins, B. & Radcliff, D. (2008). Data leakage landscape: where data leaks and how next generation tools apply. SANS whitepaper. 

Anjali, B., Geetanjalila, R., Shivlila, P., Swati, S. & kadu, N. (2013). Data leakage detection. European Journal of Computer science and information Technology, 1, (1), 1-10.  

Kamaresan, N. (2014). Key Considerations in Protecting Sensitive Data Leakage Using Data Loss Prevention Tools. ISACA Journal, 1. 

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Khan, K. M. (2013). Developing and evaluating security-aware software systems. Hershey, Pa: Information Science Reference.

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ISCTCS (Conference), In Lu, Y., In Wu, X., & In Zhang, X. (2015). Trustworthy computing and services: International Conference, ISCTCS 2014, Beijing, China.

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Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in research paper writing help 24 hours if you need a similar paper you can place your order for essay writing services.