Exploring the Role of Web Security in Preventing Data Breaches

In Q3 2024, 422.61 million records were exposed due to data breaches worldwide.

As the number and frequency of data breaches are growing fast, organisations and individuals face many challenges in terms of finances, reputation, and data loss.

But there is a way to protect your organisation from data breaches – by using advanced web security solutions.

Let’s understand the reasons behind data breaches and how web security helps prevent them.

Global data breaches increased 20% from 2022-2023.

So what are the reasons behind this surge? Let’s find out.

Weak Credentials

You may have used many applications and services in your professional and personal lives. The passwords you set for these accounts protect your sensitive data. However, people still use weak passwords and reuse them on several accounts. Some of the most used passwords are “12345”, “password”, “admin”, “password123”, etc. which are easy to guess for cyberattackers and compromise your accounts and data.

According to statistics, weak passwords account for more than 80% of data breaches in organisations. Data breaches also happen due to password hygiene issues, such as sharing passwords with others and writing down passwords that others can find.

Insider Threats

You can’t really trust anyone 100% when it comes to web security, could you? External factors are not the only reason for a data breach, it could be people from your organisation.

Insiders are behind 60% of data breaches, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. In case of unintentional, cyberattacks compromise user accounts and permissions to gain unauthorised access. On the other hand, intentional insider threats happen if anyone from your organisation has an ulterior motive, such as:

• Espionage
• Selling data for financial gains
• Holding a grudge and exposing sensitive data to your competitors
  
  

Result?

According to a 2022 report, insider threats have increased by 44% in the past couple of years, costing organisations $15.58 million per incident. 

Cloud Misconfigurations

More and more organisations across the world are using cloud services. Major cloud providers - Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, etc. have made it easier for organisations to embrace the technology. This offers benefits, such as higher operational efficiency, convenience, affordability, scalability, backups, and more.

This means a high volume of data is being stored in the cloud, which attracts cyber attackers. Weaknesses in cloud services, such as misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, weak authentication, unsecured data backups, unnecessary privileges, etc. allow attackers to exploit them and breach your security systems and data.

New Ransomware Variants

Ransomware is harmful software that allows a cyberattacker to encrypt data from a system where it’s installed and limit or block the user from accessing their data until they pay a ransom for it.

To counter this, organisations started backing up their data in other locations and systems. So, you don’t have to pay the ransom to free your data because it's not extracted from the system, it still remains. You can instead retrieve your data from backups.

However, there’s a possibility that they might threaten to expose your data to the public if it’s highly sensitive in nature. Also, cyberattackers are developing new variants of ransomware and selling them through “ransomware-as-a-service”. This makes it easier for other attackers to purchase ransomware and cause more financial damage. In 2022 alone, organisations worldwide detected around 500 million ransomware attacks. 

Unsecure Third-Party Systems

Organisations use many third-party systems, such as HR software, payment processors, cloud services, and so on to simplify their operations. So, security vulnerabilities in these systems could translate into a data breach and expose your business and customer data. So, there is always a risk factor with third parties, such as business partners, suppliers, and contractors.

According to a 2022 Verizon report, 62% of all data breaches occur through third-party vendors.

Vulnerable Applications

Using poorly written software applications or weak network systems provides an easy way for attackers to infiltrate your systems. It’s like leaving the door open, so attackers won’t need to break it. Cyber Attackers are always on the hunt for these backdoors that don’t need much effort to get to your data.

According to a survey, 92% of the participating companies said they experienced a data breach due to application vulnerabilities. Failing to patch and update applications, ineffective vulnerability management, and improper network configurations are other reasons for data breaches.

Excessive Permissions

Granting excessive permissions and privileges to users is risky. It increases the chances of insider threats and data breaches. Unfortunately, not every organisation realises it.

Most businesses don’t have any idea who has access to what data and the level of permissions they possess. This allows a malicious insider to get unrestricted access to sensitive business data they are not supposed to see. Consequently, they misuse the data and pave the way for data breaches to harm the organisation. This is why it’s important to limit access permissions.

Social Engineering

Social engineering attacks use psychological methods to trick individuals into revealing sensitive data and are behind many data breaches. These come in various types - phishing, smishing, vishing, scareware, honeytraps, etc.

For example, an attacker can lure an individual through a phishing email claiming they’ve won a hefty prize worth something like $10 million. To secure the money, they ask the individual to click a (malicious) link that downloads deadly malware in their systems, exposing data.

According to Statista, users around the world encountered nearly 9.45 million phishing emails.

Data breaches are real, there’s no denying it but now the question is - how to tackle them?

This is where web security comes in. Let’s talk about this in the next section.

What Is Web Security?

Web security refers to protecting the systems, devices, networks, users, applications, etc. of an organisation from cyberattacks using various services, technologies, and practices. It aims at improving your organisation’s overall security posture by preventing cyber threats, such as data breaches, malware, social engineering, viruses, etc.

There are many web security systems that individuals and organisations use, including authentication measures, firewalls, antivirus software, vulnerability scanners, and intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS). Today, using just one web security technology is not enough, you need layered defence by combining various systems and practices to make it challenging for attackers to get through

The Importance of Web Security

According to reports, cyberattacks happen every 11 seconds. Looking at how frequently people fall victim to web security risks, it’s necessary to protect your organisation and data.

Web security services and practices help here by:

• Protecting business and customer data
• Ensuring compliance with data protection laws and regulations
• Reducing operational interruptions and downtimes due to attacks
• Saving finances by avoiding costly fixes and paying ransoms
• Preserving customer trust and reputation in the industry

Web security services are the first line of defence between your organisation and cyber attackers. They are placed in your network endpoints and the web, monitoring and filtering traffic coming in or going out.

For maximum security, you must employ multiple web security services, such as firewalls, antivirus software, URL filtering, data breach prevention systems, etc. These services help you protect against malware infections, password theft, and other security issues. Let’s talk about some of the web security solutions:

Network Firewalls

Network firewalls are devices that protect against unauthorised access by monitoring and filtering traffic. You can either use a cloud or an on-premises firewall on your network. Cloud firewalls are easy to scale, flexible, and cost-efficient.

Antivirus

Antivirus is a software program that you can install on your systems to detect and remove viruses, ransomware, trojan horses, and more.

URL Filtering

These systems are used to provide a safe internet environment for your organisation by blocking inappropriate or harmful content. This will ensure no employees end up accessing malicious websites and fall into their traps.

DNS Filters

Similar to URL filters, DNS filters block DNS-related security risks, such as tunnelling, hijacking, spoofing, cache poisoning, and more. It also blocks harmful content to protect your organisation.

Secure Web Gateway (SWG)

A SWG is a solution that works on a predefined guideline or policy and checks user requests against those policies. If they don’t match, it will deny the user’s request to protect the organisation from security risks.

Decryption

This technique breaks encrypted SSL/TLS traffic originating from outside or inside your organisation. It analyses its content for security risks and decides whether to block it or let it complete its journey further.

To ensure web security, consider these best practices:

Use Strong Credentials

Since weak passwords are one of the biggest causes of data breaches, always use strong passwords, so cyberattacks can’t guess them. Keep your passwords unique and longer and use uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.

In addition, try not to use the same passwords in multiple accounts. If one of your passwords is stolen, attackers can reuse them to access your other accounts too.

Moreover, you can use a secure password manager to store all your passwords. This way, you don’t need to memorise them or write them down that malicious individuals could find and misuse.

Update and Patch Systems

Never forget to patch and update your software systems. Doing this enables you to use its latest versions, free of detected vulnerabilities, bugs, and errors. To avoid delays, set up automatic updates (if available) so that the newly released versions are installed automatically. If no automatic updates are available, do it as soon as you are prompted.

Use Multi-Layered Defence

A single line of defence is not enough to tackle sophisticated attacks. You need multiple layers of security mechanisms to maximise web security.

For example, you can use multi-factor authentication on your applications. If anyone tries to access it, they will need to furnish multiple authentication credentials, such as a password and an OTP. In addition, you can enable firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, antivirus systems, and more to make attackers’ tasks harder.

Regular Audits

Conduct data breach and compliance audits periodically in your organisation to understand eminent risks. You can also develop security frameworks, policies, and guidelines specific to your organisation and compare them against the results you’ve obtained in the audits. It will help you map the gaps in security and compliance requirements. This way, it becomes easier for you to fix issues faster.

Strengthen Access Controls

To prevent unauthorised access, strengthen your access control mechanisms. Allow only the required level of access permissions to individuals to complete their jobs, not more. You can enable advanced access control practices and systems, such as:

Identity and access management (IAM): To give the right people the right amount of privileges
Least privileged access: To provide the minimum access privileges to individuals and accounts based on their job role

Zero trust: To never trust anyone (even if they are insiders) and always verify their identity
In addition, keep revisiting your access permissions from time to time and revoke them based on the current status of a user or account. For example, if an employee leaves your organisation, block their access and delete their account so they can’t access your resources anymore.

Data Encryption and Backup

Protect your sensitive data from unauthorised access or theft by encrypting it and storing it in a secure server. By any chance, if an attacker manages to steal your data, they can’t read its content as it’s encrypted. You can use advanced encryptions, such as HTTPS or TLS for data security.

Similarly, make it your habit to make copies of your data and back it up in safe locations. Even after an attack, you won’t lose your precious data. You can retrieve it easily from other servers.

Use Advanced Web Security Services

Use advanced web security solutions to protect your organisations against data breaches. But make sure you purchase these services from a reputed web security solution provider.

You can use systems, such as cloud firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention (IDS/IPS) systems, network and breach monitoring systems, identity and access management (IDM) services, zero trust security, vulnerability scanners, and more. Choose web security solutions based on your organisation’s security needs, challenges you face, and budget.

In addition, create a detailed incident detection and response plan to find and neutralise common website security issues in time.

Awareness and Training

Create and run web security awareness and training sessions in your organisation. Invite all your employees from different departments, partners, and other associates to take part in these programs. This will help them understand the risks up close, their consequences, the current challenges you face, and how to tackle adverse situations.

For this, you can organise penetration testing, security drills, tabletop exercises, and other activities to prepare them for attacks.

Data breaches don’t seem to be going away so soon. The only option we have is to tackle them head-on.

Take charge of your organisation’s web security with Microminder CS. We offer proactive web security with solutions that you can customise according to your business needs:

• Vulnerability assessment: to find and remove hidden vulnerabilities from your systems
• Incident response management: to detect, resolve, and manage security incidents with careful planning and real-time execution
• Continuous monitoring: to monitor threats in real-time continuously and respond to them.
• Penetration testing and web application security testing: to test how resilient your systems and applications are against threats.
• Breach and attack simulation: to simulate real-world data breach scenarios and improve your team’s cyber preparedness

Our web security solutions are scalable, user-friendly, and cost-efficient, whether you are a small business or an enterprise.

Talk to experts to explore how our web security solutions can secure your business.