What are some of the most common data protection issues today? How can you avoid this or how can you work around these issues? Let us know more below.
Data Protection Issues
To begin, data protection issues refer to overall data loss or theft and are potentially more severe than malware issues. However, malware issues can still be very damaging and costly as well. Such problems include:
- Infection by viruses
- Intrusion by Trojans
- Infiltration by spyware or adware
- Exfiltration of personal or confidential data
- Data theft by keylogger programs.
So, the main point to consider is whether there is a violation of security procedures or a technical problem that exposes confidential information. These issues can include:
- Losing data due to human error (e.g., accidentally deleting files) or hardware failure (e.g., hard disk crashes)
- Having your computer hacked into without your knowledge
- Having your data stolen from an online account (e.g., email, social networking site) without your password being compromised.
These issues are usually done through keyloggers and Trojans installed on your computer. This steals password information either when you type it in or when you copy and paste it from a password manager. It’s also possible they installed a backdoor into your password manager program. So they could access your passwords later on even if you changed them.
If that’s the case, changing all of your passwords might not help you if they have already saved them somewhere else on their servers. In other words, it’s best to avoid using the same passwords at multiple sites. But if you absolutely must do it, use a secure password manager to store all of those passwords in an encrypted form. This is instead of typing them all in again at each site (which is still a bad idea).
Moreover, it’s also possible that they installed malicious software on any sites where you log in with the same username/password combination. So that every site shares the same password for that username automatically.
Avoid Data Protection Issues
How, then, can you avoid the issues stated above? Firstly, you can create a password manager to store all of your passwords in an encrypted form. So that even if someone does manage to steal the file, they will not be able to access it.
Then, another way would be to use two-factor authentication (2FA) on all of your accounts. This adds an extra layer of protection by requiring you to present a special code before you can access the account.
Moreover, another method is to use open-source software whenever possible. Open-source software is programs whose source code is available to the public. This enables security researchers (and hackers) to review the source code for potential threats and vulnerabilities.
Finally, avoid installing third-party software onto your computer unless you know for certain that it’s safe for use. In addition, always keep your operating system up-to-date with the latest patches and security updates from time to time.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is very important to have a good data protection plan in place. This can help you avoid problems arising from malware and other issues, and ensures that your confidential data remains confidential.