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Data breach costs on the rise: Securing mobile endpoints
Often times, when a data breach occurs at an enterprise, it presents a cautionary tale for other organizations. Administrators are warned to prevent such events due to the harm that it can do to the company's reputation and the impact it can have on the customer base. However, many decision-makers do not realize that the financial cost of a breach can be just as severe.
Data breaches become more costly
Recently, the Ponemon Institute released a report detailing the rising costs of data breaches, according to Network World's Ellen Messmer. Analysts found that last year's breaches cost businesses an average of 9 percent more than security events occurring in 2012, reaching of $5.4 million in costs associated with data breach repercussions.
Overall, breaches in 2012 cost groups an average of $188 per compromised or lost record, which increased to $201 per record last year. However, firms in industries impacted by privacy regulations saw higher costs. For example, healthcare groups paid an average of $316 per lost record and transportation organizations paid $268 per record.
Unsecured mobile devices create vulnerabilities
While data breaches can come as a result of a wide range of causes - including malware infection or a malicious insider - an increasing number are caused by unprotected mobile devices. According to Health IT Outcomes contributor Christine Kern, this is especially true within the healthcare sector. Furthermore, an FBI notice recently alerted the industry that these events could be on the rise in the near future due to the migration from physical records to electronic documents.
However, the trend of increasingly leveraging mobile devices to access and transit sensitive information is growing across nearly every industry. This practice is making it more important for organizations to ensure the safety of employee mobile devices.
Best practices for mobile device security
There are several best practices that can be utilized to mitigate the security risks associated with mobile devices, including the use of mobile antimalware software. CIO contributor Ed Tittel noted that even casual users that do not leverage their mobile device for work purposes should install software that can alert the individual of malware infection.
"This goes double for anyone who wants to use such a device for work," Tittel recommended.
Within an office environment, administrators should also require that employees use strong authentication measures to lock their individual endpoints, as well as to gain entry to any business-related resources. By safeguarding databases and other company content with password protection, managers also have better oversight of their informational assets.
Decision-makers can also implement encryption as part of a layered security approach to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive content. This technology can be deployed on the device itself, as well as on any data at rest or in transit to make materials unreadable to anyone without the decryption key.
Tittel also suggested performing security audits and penetration test on a regular basis through a trusted third party security firm to get a better idea of any weaknesses within the company's protection system.
"Hire the pros to do unto your mobile devices what the bad guys will try to do unto you sooner or later, though, and you'll be able to protect yourself from the kinds of threats they can present," Tittel wrote.
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