Protecting Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information: Best Practices for Safekeeping

Protecting Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information: Best Practices for Safekeeping

In today’s digital age, the protection of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) has become a critical concern for individuals, businesses, and other organizations. With increasing instances of cyber threats such as data breaches and identity thefts, it has become imperative to implement best practices for safekeeping sensitive PII.

What is Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is any information that can be used to identify an individual, either alone or in combination with other information. Some common examples of PII are social security numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, financial information, and medical records.

Best Practices for Protecting Sensitive Personally Identifiable Information

1. Educate Employees: One of the essential steps towards protecting sensitive PII is to ensure that employees are trained and educated about the importance of PII and how to safeguard it. This includes creating policies on password protection, data encryption, and secure data disposal.

2. Use Encryption: Encryption is a process of coding data to make it unreadable to unauthorized persons. It is essential to ensure that sensitive PII is encrypted both in transit and at rest, i.e., when stored on a device.

3. Implement Access Controls: Access controls can restrict access to sensitive PII only to authorized personnel. This can be done through the use of role-based access control or multi-factor authentication.

4. Regularly Update Software and Security Systems: It is crucial to keep software and security systems up to date, as many cyber threats exploit known vulnerabilities in software and systems.

5. Monitor and Audit Access: Implementing monitoring and auditing measures can help detect and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive PII. This can include monitoring logins, access attempts, and other activity related to sensitive PII.

Case Study: Marriott Data Breach

In 2018, Marriott International reported a data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 500 million guests. The breach was a result of a vulnerability in the company’s guest reservation database, which had been compromised since 2014. The information exposed included names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, passport numbers, and credit card information. Marriott was fined $123 million for the breach, highlighting the importance of protecting sensitive PII.

Conclusion

Protecting sensitive personally identifiable information is crucial in this digital age where cyber threats are prevalent. Businesses and organizations must implement best practices like employee education, encryption, access controls, software updates, monitoring, and auditing measures to safeguard sensitive PII. Taking proactive steps towards protecting sensitive PII can prevent data breaches and identity theft, thus safeguarding individuals’ and businesses’ reputation and finances.

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