India celebrates data privacy day, what does it mean?

There is a sharp increase in cyber and on-line frauds and it is an urgent necessity to safeguard everyone’s privacy. Data privacy has become a boardroom discussion in most of the organisations today. Millions of people are unaware of and uninformed about how their personal information is being used, collected or shared in our digital society. Data Privacy Week is an international effort to empower individuals and encourage businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.

January 28 is celebrated as Data Privacy Day (DPD) across the world. Enterprises are rapidly using the cloud to revolutionize their digital transformations and many believe that cloud computing is the cause of data leakage and pilferage. It is true that there are several benefits of cloud computing including potential lower cost and faster time to market. Data security is amongst the key concerns holding back enterprises from adopting cloud solutions.

Some of the most common cloud security risks include unauthorized access through improper access controls and the misuse of employee credentials. Unauthorized access and insecure APIs are tied for the number one spot as the single biggest perceived security vulnerability in the cloud.

Today, many organizations in India and around the globe are exposed to sophisticated vulnerabilities, as their infrastructure and data security framework is inadequate. Malware, ransomware and cyber threats have become more specialized and penetrative.

The most common problem is cloud storage misconfiguration, which can quickly escalate into a major cloud security breach for an organization and its customers. Protecting data is a major concern when almost everything is available online and can be accessed with just a few clicks.

The education and research sector was the hardest hit, averaging 1,605 attacks per week, with government organizations, communications companies, and internet service providers close behind. Even attacks on the healthcare sector were up 71% on pre-pandemic levels, showing nothing is off-limits to threat actors.

Data Privacy Day, or Data Protection Day as it’s known in Europe, is the perfect time for individuals and businesses to evaluate their data hygiene and security protocols to ensure their data is kept as safe and secure as possible.