3 ways Rapid can help reduce the risk of data breaches

Rapid Global are proud to be a supporter of Privacy Awareness Week 2021 (PAW).

Running from 3 to 9 May, #PAW2021 is led by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to promote the responsibility that Australian Government agencies and businesses have in protecting the personal data they collect.

And seeing as 38% of data breaches are attributed to human error, at Rapid we believe that risks can be reduced greatly, simply by prioritising staff training right from the start, and by implementing a risk management system as a way of business.

3 simple strategies to reduce data breaches

A data breach is a security incident where sensitive, protected confidential information is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen or used by a person or persons with unauthorised access.

You’ll already probably be aware of the risks associated with poor data management. There’s reputation risks, legal risks, and staff mistrust too.

Thankfully, there are proven ways to manage data and limit the amount and severity of data breaches.

1. Induction training

Firstly, ensure you can get ahead of your legal obligations when it comes to data protection and privacy, by ensuring that ALL staff are given data security training from day one.

Just like building a house, it always pays to get the foundations in place from the start. And we’ve probably all experienced scenarios where it would have been much easier to prevent rather than fix an embarrassing or costly incident.

Therefore, leaders should ideally look to implement centralised induction & training for the whole workforce and contractors, with streamlined onboarding and compliance steps.

Induction training should include role-appropriate training that includes:

• Information about your organisation’s commitment to customers/stakeholders
• How customer information is collected and used
• How customer information is provided to third parties
• Information about employee privacy practices
• Sign off form that indicates they have read all policies concerning privacy
• Awareness of the violations of privacy policies that can result in serious consequences for employees and for the company

This will help to ensure that staff understand their roles, responsibilities, and what actions they are expected to take to respond to a data breach.

2. Risk management

Secondly, risk management must be part of your overall strategy.

Planning for potential data breaches is now part of any good organisation’s information risk management strategy. You cannot leave it to chance or assume that what you set in place three years ago is still fit for purpose!

Risk management strategies should be reviewed regularly, and improvements or changes made. As we learn, we can adapt and continuously do better.

At Rapid, we can help ensure your risk management is up to date. We also ensure privacy is built into processes and policy, so that you can build a ‘privacy by design’ approach.

And leaders must take charge and drive a culture of cybersecurity. Leadership is also needed to ensure that the resources are available to meet your privacy goals and targets.

There is evidence that shows where there is a strong commitment to a culture of privacy within an organisation, it’s much easier to perform good governance. This approach will allow you to be confident in your organisations systems.

3. Incident reporting

Thirdly, when it comes to mitigating and managing data breaches, reporting must be easy, and able to be done without fear.

Risk assessment should be carried out as soon as the details of the breach are brought to your attention.

Therefore, leaders must make sure their organisation is prepared for a data breach with a clear and practical reporting plan that follows four key steps: contain, assess, notify, and review.

Even seemingly ‘minor’ breaches should be reported as they may initially seem minor but actually be more significant once their full implications are assessed.

At Global we help you to easily report incidents and meet compliance requirements.

Rapid Incident Reporting provides an incident management solution to manage the entire incident lifecycle. From a solution to report a site incident, to investigation, corrective actions, response procedures, and statistics reporting. This enables you to make necessary changes to prevent similar data breaches in future.

Want to partner with an award-winning software provider?

At Rapid Global we provide workforce management software to many of the world’s most respected organisations.

Request a free demonstration to see how easy it is to use technology to set up effective training and reporting for data management. Don’t leave your organisation open to costly data breaches.