The three best ways to prevent a data breach

Netwrix introduces best practice advice for understanding what’s happening in your IT environment to combat cybercrime

Irvine, CA, June 23, 2015

With methods of cybercrime rapidly evolving, the number of headline-making data breaches continues to grow. Unfortunately, it has become clear that even advanced security measures can be easily bypassed and traditional defensive mindsets have proven to be inefficient. Companies are realizing the need to develop new security frameworks that will help them be more effective in fighting against cybercrime. The new trend in the IT industry suggests that companies need to eliminate blind spots in the IT environments and obtain access to actionable audit data about all processes that might impact security.

Netwrix Corporation, the #1 provider of change and configuration auditing software, recommends three steps that will allow companies to achieve deep and pervasive visibility across all IT infrastructure levels and address security issues:

• Ensure that changes are documented. According to the 2015 State of IT Changes Survey, 70% of companies underrate the importance of documenting changes, which puts most critical IT systems at risk of security violations and downtime. The main key to visibility across the entire IT infrastructure is to keep a complete audit trail of system activities and changes made. Remember that the human factor is always a pain point in security and consider thorough documentation of user activity as a solution to reduce the risk of employees’ inadvertence or negligence.
• Control access to sensitive data. The central component of security is knowing your data and who has access to it. Since privilege abuse remains the hardest to detect violation, restrict access to your most valuable assets only to those who need it and keep an eye on users with extended privileges. Any suspicious activity should raise questions and lead to a thorough investigation. This simple procedure will not only eliminate the risk of data leaks but restore order in permissions, reduce human errors and improve overall system performance.
• Audit and evaluate your environment continuously. Auditing procedures are of little value if they are done only occasionally. Continuous auditing of user activities and changes made to data and system configurations helps to avoid critical mistakes that might potentially damage security and service uptime. Analytics built upon this knowledge helps to detect security incidents and find the root cause of each violation. In addition, continuous monitoring provides irrefutable proof that your security policies are in place and always have been, which is very handy when needing to pass compliance audits.

"The latest data breaches have served as a wake-up call, signaling that traditional security methods don’t protect against sophisticated attacks. Many organizations still do not know what is actually going on across their most critical IT systems," said Alex Vovk, CEO and co-founder of Netwrix."Complete visibility into who did what, when and where is vital for any company striving for security, as it provides the necessary level of control and gives precious time to detect and properly react to a hacker attack."

To learn more about complete visibility across the entire IT infrastructure, visit www.netwrix.com/vega

About Netwrix Corporation

Netwrix Corporation, the #1 provider of change and configuration auditing solutions, delivers complete visibility into who did what, when and where across the entire IT infrastructure. This strengthens security, streamlines compliance and optimizes operations. Founded in 2006, Netwrix is named to the Inc. 5000 list and Deloitte Technology Fast 500. Netwrix software is used by 160,000 users worldwide. For more information, visit www.netwrix.com

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Erin Jones
E.S. Jones Public Relations
Phone: 704.664.2170

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