How identity management can keep you out of the news – for the right reasons
By Jack Skinner
President and Founder
Oversee My IT
The problem
- Small companies can avoid negative publicity from digital break-ins by using technology and procedures to ensure the right people in their organizations have access to the right information.
- Quest Diagnostics, a clinical laboratory chain, is one of many large companies to suffer a breach because of security issues at small vendor.
- Details on Quest breach:
- Digital intruders at American Medical Collection Agency, a Quest debt collector, had access to info on 11.9 million Quest patients, such as:
- Social Security numbers
- Certain financial data
- Medical information (but not laboratory tests)
- Though details aren’t yet available on how hackers got into American Medical, breaches typically happen because employees click on innocent-looking links that are actually malicious software.
- Other examples of large hack victims:
- Target
- Home Depot
- Jimmy John’s
- To avoid fines, lawsuits and other expenses that can wipe out small companies, entrepreneurs are well-advised to establish measures like two-factor authentication to help prevent the bad guys from getting in to begin with.
What identity management is, why it’s helpful
- By having employees verify their identities several ways, identity management helps prevent problems from lost passwords.
- Building in multiple layers of security like this allows easy implementation of the management system without interfering with workflows.
- It also helps in detecting breaches and minimizing the impacts those intrusions can cause.
Spend a little now, or a lot later
- As health care regulations do not provide strict guidelines on data security, a number of small health care organizations have little to none.
- Entrepreneurs often believe their companies are too small for hackers to target them. In truth, they can be steppingstones to their large partners.
- Breaches are inevitable and can cost $1.5 million to $5 million or more – a toll small businesses can survive.
- Fortunately, spending a relatively small amount up-front can prevent intrusions – and keep a business happily off the front page.
Contact Jack Skinner at Info@OverseeMyIT.com.
About Jack:
- President and Founder of Oversee My IT, an Irving-based company that works with small and mid-sized businesses make their technology trains run on time.
- Launched in 2007, Oversee helps organizations with 10 to 200 employees to run their computers, secure their data and handle compliance.
