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Having at the forefront of information risk management industry for more than a decade now, we have observed that enterprises remain most vulnerable in protecting their highly critical asset—data. Our implementation team, which has been mapping diverse IT architectures of enterprises of all shapes and sizes and integrating risk-control solutions, often finds that firms usually keep a bulletproof network security to keep malicious traffic out. However, a very scant attention is paid towards protecting the digital assets.
While lack of proper mechanism in place like Privileged Access Management (PAM) / Privileged Identity Management (PIM) solution / Privileged Identity Management exposes enterprises to monumental data-security related risks, data extrusion as a result of growing ‘Bring-your-own-devices’ (BYOD) culture is fast becoming as one of the biggest sources of data breach—apart from phishing.
Indeed, while BYOD has many positives like it improves workforce’s productivity and agility as more and more modern-day firms switch to remotely working culture, incidents like identity thefts and data breach are not uncommon nowadays as your staff unsuspiciously falls prey to organized cyber criminals and social engineering.
Since BYOD culture allows workers’ mobility, a substantial amount of work gets done outside the company’s premises and therefore the network. Consequently the devices, IT systems get exposed to unsecured networks and hacking groups as your employees work from airport lounges, cafes and other public places. Likewise, sensitive data, passwords and access codes saved in those devices could accidentally get exposed to malicious actors if by any chance your employee loses the device.
“Organization’s growing vulnerability to data extrusion is very palpable now”, says Paresh Makwana, ARCON’s VP (Business Development) for Africa. “As I meet with several CIOs and CISOs on regular occasions, one thing I have noticed is that data extrusion due to BYOD culture (especially in Africa) is perturbing the IT security in-charge even as internal frauds through social engineering and misuse of administrative accounts continue to haunt global organizations”, adds Makwana.
Having unambiguous IT security policy, which clearly specifies rules as to access a sensitive information from personal devices is the first step towards data security; however, he warns that this not enough.
To ensure that your firm’s vital assets do not get compromised, IT security personnel will need a proper access control management, particularly for critical admin and privileged accounts. “There’s an urgent need to safeguard infrastructure by integrating advanced and automated technology like the privileged access management to monitor suspicious activities around your IT systems”, he argues. The threat emits from both within and outer peripheries of your IT systems. The only way enterprises will be able to maintain security is by enabling (access) rights to be defined and be given on ‘need to know’ and ‘need to do basis’, explains Makwana.
ARCON is a leading enterprise risk control solutions provider, specializing in risk-predictive technologies. ARCON | User Behavior Analytics enables to monitor end-user activities in real time. ARCON | Privileged Access Management reinforces access control and mitigates data breach threats. ARCON | Secure Compliance Management is a vulnerability assessment tool.
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