Cybersecurity 
No, jailbreaking your iPhone is not safe and can result in your personal information being stolen, your phone becoming infected with malware and your software malfunctioning.
Data Privacy Day, which takes place annually on January 28th, is a global effort to educate consumers and organizations about the importance of privacy, promote easy ways to protect personal information, and illustrate to organizations that good data privacy is good business.
Consumers are very concerned about how the companies they do business with are using their data, particularly since the pandemic forced everyone to shift a significant portion of their lives online. Over 80% of consumers told Pew Research that they feel the potential risks of companies collecting data about them outweigh the benefits.
Additionally, data privacy and cybersecurity are closely linked, and cyber attacks are rising in intensity, frequency, and cost. Cybersecurity is fundamental to data privacy. Keeper’s Cybersecurity in the Remote Work Era: A Global Risk Report found that financial institutions lost an average of $4.7 million to cyber attacks in 2020, while organizations in industry verticals lost an average of $2.7 million.
Here are some quick tips for consumers to protect their data privacy online, and for organizations to be good stewards of the data they collect.
3 Quick Data Privacy Tips for Consumers
1. Be cautious about handing over your personal information
Don’t give out personal information online unless you initiated the contact or otherwise know who you’re dealing with. Never click on email links soliciting personal information, and never download unknown email attachments. Go to the organization’s website and contact them directly.
2. Be cautious about app permissions
Don’t just blindly click “accept” when installing apps; take a look at what the app is asking to access, and be wary of apps that ask for a lot of personal information.
3. Secure your passwords
Securing your passwords is fundamental to securing your online privacy. Use strong, unique passwords for every online account and app, enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all accounts that support it, and use a password manager like Keeper. Keeper automatically generates unique, high-strength, random passwords for all your sites and apps and stores them in a personal, encrypted digital vault that you can access from any device, running any operating system.
Get Keeper Unlimited and start securely storing your personal passwords on unlimited devices!
3 Quick Data Privacy Tips for Businesses
1. Know your data
Many organizations are storing an enormous amount of “dark data,” an ominous-sounding name for digital assets that they’re not using and that they may not even know exist. Perform an audit of your existing data stores so that you understand what you have, and dispose of any dark data that isn’t subject to compliance holds.
2. Assess your data collection processes
Review your existing data collection practices and policies so that you have a thorough understanding of what personal information you’re collecting or processing. If you don’t need a piece of data for business or compliance purposes, don’t collect it. In addition to protecting consumer privacy, this protects your organization; cybercriminals can’t steal what you don’t have.
3. Secure your employees’ passwords
Verizon estimates that over 80% of successful breaches are due to weak or compromised passwords, so the biggest thing you can do to secure your data is to secure your employees’ passwords. Mandate the use of strong, unique passwords, 2FA, and the use of a password manager such as Keeper. Keeper’s zero-knowledge password management and security platform gives IT administrators complete visibility into employee password practices, enabling them to monitor password use and enforce password security policies across the entire organization, including password complexity requirements, 2FA, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and other security policies.
Try Keeper Enterprise free for 14 days & see firsthand how it can help protect your organization from password-related data breaches & cyber threats.
Learn More About Organizational Data Privacy in Our Upcoming Webinar
Keeper CEO Darren Guccione will join Cybercrime Support Network (CSN) CEO Kristin Judge today, January 28th at 1:00 PM CT, for an engaging discussion on why organizations need to make data privacy a high priority in today’s interconnected ecosystem. Space is limited, so make sure to sign up for the webinar now.
Not a Keeper business customer yet? Sign up for a 14-day free trial now! Want to find out more about how Keeper can help your organization prevent security breaches? Reach out to our team today.
