Inadequate data protection refers to insufficient measures and controls to safeguard personal and sensitive data from unauthorized access, misuse, or theft.
The fallout for individuals, organizations, and national security can be devastating.
This is why it’s critical to be aware of the risks, consequences, and ways to mitigate disaster.
Ensure your organization’s data is protected. Try WinZip® for free today.
Why is data protection essential?
Data protection is more than necessary; it’s crucial to the well-being of your job and your company’s livelihood and reputation.
From a legal standpoint, failure to protect personal data can lead to data protection violations. This includes laws like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, which can result in severe penalties and fines (among other things).
If you want to protect your company’s name away from negative press, ensure you’re abreast of current data protection measures.
Remember that they constantly evolve because the sophistication employed to hack data is always changing.
When customers entrust your organization with their personal information, they expect you to safeguard it from misuse or unauthorized access. A breach will erode customer trust and your company’s reputation, which can have long-term implications for the health and well-being of the business.
Unfortunately, a data breach can also be wildly expensive. If the customer’s credentials are compromised, it can hit them hard and have significant financial consequences for the company.
For example, this includes investigation costs, remediation expenses, potential lawsuits, and increased insurance premiums.
A comprehensive Data Loss prevention plan will help minimize financial risks and ensure business continuity.
What are the risks of having inadequate data protection?
The answer is threefold: inadequate data protection poses significant risks to individuals, organizations, and national security.
Inadequate data protection can expose individuals to personal information such as names, contact details, financial information, and health records, leading to identity theft, fraud, and abuse by bad actors.
A Netflix series highlights the rise and fall of a popular yet nefarious dating website, Ashley Madison. It also highlights the ease with which a disgruntled individual obtained millions of pieces of personal data and exposed it to the public to make a point.
It destroyed thousands of lives, broke up families, and even led to financial ruin for some.
The risks to organizations are more bottom-line-driven. Failure to safeguard customer and employee data costs money to “fix,” often leads to service disruption, and almost always results in legal liability.
The longer-term effects are ominous: Your customers will not trust you, and this will further erode your business as they talk about it with others.
On a national level, data theft, hacking, and misuse of citizen data undermine economic and defense interests, erode public trust, and compromise national security.
The bottom line is that inadequate data protection stems from excessive data collection, lack of access controls, outdated security practices, and failure to follow data minimization principles. Again, this underscores the importance of implementing policy and training staff for the worst possible scenarios.
What are the legal consequences of not protecting data?
The legal consequences of failing to protect data adequately can be severe. Companies are looking at:
- Regulatory fines and penalties: Under GDPR, organizations can face fines of more than $20 million or 4% of global annual revenue, whichever is higher, for violations like failing to implement appropriate data protection measures.
- CCPA allows fines of $7,500 per intentional violation and $2,500 per unintentional violation.
- LGPD in Brazil permits fines of up to BRL 50 million per violation, depending on severity.
- HIPAA violations related to inadequate safeguards for protected health information can result in fines of up to $1.5 million annually.
- Civil lawsuits and class actions: Data breaches expose organizations to civil lawsuits from affected individuals for negligence, privacy violations, and deceptive business practices, potentially resulting in massive settlement costs.
- High-profile data breaches have led to costly class-action lawsuits, with companies paying hundreds of millions in damages. For example, Equifax paid at least $575 million after its 2017 breach.
- Criminal prosecution: Under specific data protection laws like Nigeria’s NDPR, failure to protect personal data is considered a criminal offense, potentially leading to fines and imprisonment of responsible individuals.
- Reputational damage: Data breaches and non-compliance can tarnish an organization’s reputation, eroding consumer trust, impacting future revenue, and causing long-term brand devaluation.
- Business disruption: Regulatory orders like public warnings, processing bans, and forced audits can significantly disrupt business operations during data protection failures.
That said, by implementing robust data governance, security controls, incident response plans, and adhering to data protection principles, you can mitigate these legal, financial, and reputational risks from poorly constructed data safeguards.
Top 7 common data protection mistakes
Let’s examine some common data protection mistakes, of which there are many. Knowing what the mistakes look like can help you avoid these easy pitfalls upfront.
- Simple passwords that are easy to guess, do not enable two-factor or multi-factor authentication (MFA), reuse the same passwords across multiple accounts, and store passwords in plain text files or documents are all easy entry points for sophisticated hackers.
- Lack of awareness about privacy risks from cookies and tracking technologies can be damning. Most of us blindly accept all cookies when visiting a new website without understanding their purpose or intended use.
However, this can be a mistake, especially if you aren’t revoking consent or deleting cookies periodically. You may be giving express permission to continue to collect data about you even if you aren’t on that website.
- Posting excessive personal details on social media, not reviewing privacy settings on online accounts, and failing to use privacy protection tools like Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
- Neglecting to install the latest security patches and updates can make your devices vulnerable to attack, and continuing to use outdated and unsupported software versions is equally risky.
- Opening email attachments or links from untrusted sources is a big no-no, as is providing sensitive information in response to requests from bad actors.
- Not wiping data securely before disposing of old devices and failing to encrypt sensitive data stored on devices will make individuals and organizations vulnerable to misuse.
- Connecting to public hotspots without a VPN and transmitting sensitive data over unsecured wireless networks can cause trouble. The airport is an excellent example of where you should avoid connecting to a public hotspot.
To avoid these mistakes, companies and employees should follow cybersecurity best practices, be cautious about sharing personal data online, keep software updated, use solid passwords/authentication, and remain vigilant against phishing and social engineering attempts.
Data protection is not something you can afford to ignore
Implementing a comprehensive data protection plan requires a multi-layered approach combining technical controls, governance frameworks, employee awareness, and continuous improvement to safeguard data throughout its lifecycle.
When considering data protection solutions for your organization, recognize that WinZip® is a leader in the space for a reason.
WinZip enforces encryption rules, requiring passwords and enabling IT admins to set password strength policies for added security. IT admins can set granular read/write permissions for individuals or groups, controlling who can access encrypted data on removable media.
Non-encrypted data can be restricted from being written to external storage, preventing data leaks.
From centralized management and monitoring to secure file sharing and email protection, WinZip offers a comprehensive solution to address inadequate data protection risks across an organization’s data lifecycle. If you need help figuring out where to begin, discover why WinZip is a great place to start.
Keep your organization’s data protected. Try WinZip for yourself with a free trial.
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