How Major Companies Find Leaks

Serious data leaks are increasingly prevalent in the news. We mostly hear about the immediate impact of those leaks and the steps taken to fix them, but how much do we actually know about how companies find and prevent these leaks?

A lot of companies require employees to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to legally hold leakers accountable, but this isn’t the most effective method to prevent leaks. Major corporations like Google and Apple also take proactive steps to protect information from leaking to competitors and others with malicious intent. These include dedicated leak teams, restricted employee access to sensitive information and much more.

We took a look at a few major companies to learn how they detect dangerous leaks and breaches.

Everyone can fall victim to malicious attacks and security breaches, from giant corporations to startups. Unfortunately, major data breaches and leaks can occur even with the simplest mistakes. Forgetting to log out of an account or unintentionally clicking on a malicious link can spell disaster and put lots of people at risk and damages trust with both customers and employees. Not to mention, a leak can also cost a great deal of money. The best thing we can do to protect everyone is to take a proactive approach with data security.

We can all learn a thing or two from these big businesses. For example, enlisting the help of white hat hackers can help your company discover hard-to-detect vulnerabilities that your current team might not be aware of yet. Frequent security checks and reporting can also bring potential or ongoing issues to light. A comprehensive cyber security platform is a vital way of making your data security efficient and effective.

You can take a look at your own business’ cybersecurity risk today to see how vulnerable you are to attacks and leaks. Knowing your risk level helps shape and form what plan of action you’ll need to take next. Having a panoramic view of your data and engaging in accurate threat modeling gets you a few steps closer to preventing any data leaks and keeping sensitive data safe.

Sources:

Gizmodo 1, 2, 3 | Bloomberg 1, 2| The Outline | The Verge 1, 2 | Business Insider 1, 2, 3 | Small Biz Trends | Datafloq | Wall Street Journal 1, 2 | The Guardian 1, 2 | Deadline | Hackernoon | Google | CityLab | Scribd