Data security services

A data security assessment involves a comprehensive evaluation of your organization’s hardware, software, data governance processes, and user behaviors, to determine how susceptible your systems are to threats such as unauthorized access, data breaches, or cyberattacks.

A thorough assessment not only identifies vulnerabilities but also helps you discover how your employees collect, store, use, and manage company and customer data. For instance, your employees can keep critical business data in an Excel file that anyone in the company can access, download, and share. Lack of popper access controls in such a case can be threatening to your business and lead to non-compliance fines.

At Yalantis, we provide 24/7 security monitoring with automated threat detection, real-time alerts, and incident response support. Our security team can proactively identify and mitigate threats before they escalate. Additionally, we offer regular compliance audits and continuous vulnerability management to keep your security posture strong.

Importance of data security assessment

Identifying vulnerabilities

Regular assessments and security audits help discover weak spots in your security infrastructure that malicious actors can use to compromise your data. By proactively identifying these gaps across different environments such as cloud and on-premises, your data security service team can implement measures to protect your data.

Regulatory compliance

Many industries are subject to stringent data protection regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS. Timely security assessments ensure that your organization complies with these regulations at all organizational levels, helping you avoid legal penalties and fines.

Protecting reputation

Data breaches can severely damage an organization’s reputation, leading to the loss of customer trust and revenue. Assessments can help you prevent such incidents by highlighting which datasets and software systems require the most rigid security controls. When you know how vulnerable your data infrastructure is, you can prepare incident response plans that can guide your security teams on how to deal with a data breach.

Efficient allocation of resources when implementing security measures

Understanding your security weaknesses allows for a more strategic allocation of resources. You can define which areas require immediate action and gradually solve all the security issues, improving your security posture without significant upfront investment.

Steps to conduct a data security assessment

1. Identification of company digital assets. Begin by cataloging all hardware, software, and data assets within your organization. Understanding what digital assets you have and organizing them based on importance and sensitivity is fundamental to assessing their security.
2. Vulnerability scanning. Evaluate your software systems and integrations with third-party service providers for vulnerabilities. For instance, at Yalantis, we employ automated tools to scan for software vulnerabilities and conduct manual reviews of security configurations.
3. Risk identification. Another step would be composing a risk analysis framework to identify, prioritize, and analyze potential threats to each data asset. Such threats could be cyberattacks, insider threats, and natural disasters. It’s also crucial to determine the potential impact of each identified risk on your operations, finances, and reputation.
4. Risk mitigation. Based on such a thorough risk analysis, your data security service team can prepare risk mitigation strategies which can include applying security patches, updating software, enhancing access controls, composing endpoint security policies, or providing employee training.
5. Documentation and reporting. Comprehensive documentation and reporting records can be critical for:
   – gaining stakeholders’ buy-in to invest in a more secure data infrastructure
   – compliance purposes
   – informing future security strategies
6. Continuous monitoring. Implement continuous monitoring to detect emerging vulnerabilities, risky software, and illicit user behavior, and respond to threats promptly.

How to build a data protection strategy

A well-structured data protection strategy is a company-wide security guide that encompasses policies, procedures, and technologies designed to protect data throughout its lifecycle. Such a strategy not only helps defend your infrastructure from cyberattacks and data breaches, but also reduces risks of business downtime due to those cyberattacks. Prolonged downtime can have irrevocable consequences for the business in terms of time, customer satisfaction, and revenue.

Key components of a data protection strategy

1. Data lifecycle management (DLM). Implementing processes to manage data from creation and collection to deletion or archival is critical for data security. DLM includes proper data classification, storage, usage, archiving, and secure disposal. With effective DLM processes, businesses can make decisions based on high-quality data.
2. Access controls. Strict access controls and identity management practices ensure that only authorized users and employees can access business-critical data. Data access management involves implementing role-based, data-centric, and context-centric access controls and regularly reviewing access permissions. Plus, MFA is also one of the ways to prevent unauthorized access.
3. Data encryption. Encryption algorithms and protocols protect data at rest and in transit. Data encryption procedures ensure that even if data is intercepted or accessed without authorization, it remains unreadable and undetectable to threat actors.
4. Regular backups. Regular data backups and disaster recovery ensure proper data storage and availability in case of data loss incidents. A security team should store data backups securely in remote locations and regularly test them to confirm their integrity and effectiveness.
5. Incident response plan. A comprehensive incident response plan outlining procedures for detecting, responding to, and recovering from data breaches or security incidents is essential for every organization that expects to preserve their reputation and business efficiency even despite data breaches.
6. Employee training and awareness. Educating employees on data protection services, policies, procedures, and best practices helps prevent human errors that could lead to data breaches or insider threats. You can also prepare cybersecurity tests to periodically validate your employees’ knowledge and understanding of data security.
7. Compliance management. Ensure that your data protection strategy aligns with relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards. Regular security audits and assessments can help maintain compliance and identify areas for improvement.

Protect your data infrastructure from malicious attacks and have more confidence in your digital initiatives. Data security is your guard on the way to innovation, as you can experiment with different vendors, data storage environments, and third-party services, while your security team serves as a backbone, supporting rather than limiting your business growth. With prompt security assessment and continuous updates of the data protection strategy, your company infrastructure will remain resistant to the majority of security threats and vulnerabilities.