The Associated Risks with Poor Data Protection

In last week’s blog: Data Protection and Registering with the ICO, we discussed what Data Protection is, what laws enforce and standardise data protection practices, who the ICO are, and how employing a Virtual Data Protection Officer (vDPO) can be advantageous for your business in ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA Triad) of your business’s data.

In today’s post we at JC Cyber Security are going to discuss the risks your organisation may face due to poor data protection practices – with the aim of helping you understand why data protection is an important aspect to day-to-day life for every business.

If you would like help with achieving on-going compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act (DPA), or registering with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), please contact us today and one of our Cyber Experts will be happy to assist you.

Data Protection and the associated risks

Data is the cornerstone to how every organisation operates. Whether that be gathering, processing, or transferring user data, you as an institution have the trust of your employees, suppliers, and customers to lawfully handle their personal data. Therefore, ensuring you have optimal systems, policies, documentation, and practices in place can go a long way in protecting the security of your business and stakeholders.

However, to truly understand the situation, you need to know the potential consequences associated with an IT security breach or a misuse of data. Here are some common outcomes.

Compromised Confidential Data

When your information security system(s) are not at their best possible state, it invites threat-actors to pray on the confidential data your business carries. There are many different hackers with varying motivations, so think for a moment about the data you deal with daily. Customer information, payment details, bank accounts, employee and client details, credit and debit cards, details about your suppliers and other clients. The list may go on.

What would happen if that information got into dangerous hands? You can only imagine but suffice to say that the lives of your employees, clients, and customers would be greatly affected in very negative ways. This could be as innocuous as using their addresses to send them targeted junk mail. Which would be annoying but not life changing. But it could easily be something as serious as using payment details to make fraudulent purchases or simply taking money straight out of their accounts.

Negative public image

One thing we can all agree on is the integrity of on organisation is a big factor when deciding who we provide our personal data. Therefore, one of the biggest priorities from high-level management should be ensuring a healthy public image.

Nobody wants to do business with a company that is not secure or doesn’t protect their customers. It is as simple as that. Think about it, would you choose to spend your hard-earned money with a business that has just proved itself unable to handle customer data securely or too careless to put in the effort to implement optimal security controls to fix an identified vulnerability? No, you wouldn’t, and nor will your customers if your security is compromised. Poor public image can destroy an organisation, and even if you manage to implement the necessary systems after a breach, there may be no coming back when trying to repair the broken trust.

Technology and Cyber related crime is moving at a constant rate and as a result, you need to be proactive in making sure your business is protected. Failing to do so actually gives an unintended glimpse into the way your business operates. If you are not putting in the required IT security for the business, then what other aspects of your business are you failing to place proper attention in keeping up to date? This sort of negative perception is extremely difficult to come back from.

JC Cyber Security offer many different Cyber Security Solutions that can help protect your business and safeguard your public image. However, if you do not yet understand the necessary steps, or would like some assistance in achieving ongoing compliance or implementing the correct cyber solutions, we offer Advice & Consultancy, Training & Awareness, Emergency Cyber Response, and affordable Monthly Protection Plans starting from £30p/m.

Financial losses

This is a direct result of the last point because of that damage to your public image having an obvious knock-on effect on your ability to be competitive in the marketplace. If more customers don’t feel their confidential data is secure, they will choose to give their business to your competitors which will drastically hit your profits.

Depending on the nature of the IT security breach it could have other consequences as well. Such as data thieves could get access to your business bank accounts. With proper fraud protection, you could get this money back from the bank. But that sort of thing normally takes time, usually anything from a few days up to a few months depending on the amount taken and any investigations that need to be performed. If nothing else the security of your IT system would need to be considerably improved, which could require extensive investment.

Staffing problems

The issues that arise from your negative image from a data security perspective may not just affect how your business is viewed by customers and clients, but the damage could be even more far-reaching internally too. Your employees are the core of your business, and if they feel that the business doesn’t take data security seriously, they may act themselves to work for an organisation that protects their data properly.

How could your business cope if half of your staff decided to hand in their notice and you found advertising for new employees become harder due to your poor integrity regarding data protection? Have you got a contingency plan in place for this? It is unlikely, few businesses do, but the reality is that this is a very real concern when it comes to matters surrounding data security. Lives could be genuinely affected by sensitive data getting into the hands of cyber-criminals, employees will not take kindly to any company that has not taken the proper precautions with their IT security.

Employing the necessary staff or promoting those within your organisation to fill out Data Protection duties may impact your business operations. GDPR dictates that you must appoint a DPO if you are a public authority or body, or if you carry out certain types of processing activities such as regular and systematic monitoring of individuals, or large-scale processing of sensitive data.

Although other businesses are not legally required to have a DPO, the ICO recommends every business appoints a DPO to comply with GDPR and avoid fines. Thus, if you would like to ensure good data protection standardisation, but don’t have the time, money, or knowledge to implement the necessary team, outsourcing those responsibilities to a certified Virtual Data Protection Officer may the best solution.

Outsourcing responsibility to a Virtual Data Protection Officer is more cost-effective than an internal hire, particularly as you only pay for the time you require, (save on overheads, holiday cover etc). You also benefit from access to a wide team of certified GDPR practitioners, Data Protection professionals and technical experts rather than limiting your business to the experience of one individual who may need time getting used to your organisation and investment in achieving certification and training.

Legal obligations

Don’t forget that if your business deals with any sort of confidential information, then you are going to almost certainly be under some form of a legal requirement to take the proper steps to handle said information correctly. The data could be in the form of employee and client details or other confidential data. Are you familiar with what your legislative obligations are in terms of your IT security? If not, we can help.

The consequences of this are obvious and depending on the severity of the resulting data security breach, the punishment handed out could be more than your business needs to continue operating. There are different severities of consequences depending on the severity of the breach, for example, a relatively minor blip in an otherwise secure system could result in a warning or a small fine whereas a larger-scale breach or failing to comply with legislation could result in severe penalties such as much more punishing fines or even in certain circumstances a jail sentence(s).