Over 20 years ago, USB flash drives, also known as thumb drives, were regarded as a breakthrough in portable data storage technology. Today, they are seen as a major security risk. If you must use a USB flash drive for data storage, there are ways to improve your data security. Read on to learn how to secure your thumb drive. If you’re aware of sensitive data and its storage requirements, skip ahead to our top 7 tips for securing your USB flash drive.

ePHI stands for electronic protected health information. Electronic protected health information is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, commonly known as HIPAA. ePHI security is governed by the HIPAA Security Rule. With the rise of telehealth, covered entities need to understand the requirements for safely transmitting, storing, and using ePHI to be compliant with the Security Rule and to protect a patient’s privacy.

The Privacy Management (PMT), Privacy by design (PbD) and Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) tools, Integration of Data Management and Security, Integration of Extensible Key Management (EKM) and Cloud Key Management as a Service (KMaaS), Data Security as a Service (DSaaS), Data Security Platforms and Cloud Database Activity Monitoring (DAM) are in rapid development.

When defining security policies, it is critical to know who the user is and what their privileges should be based on their role, and whether the device itself or the state of the device at the time of connection is in a known good state.

Title II of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) has two key provisions: the Privacy Rule and the HIPAA Security Rule. The Privacy Rule establishes standards for protecting certain health information, or PHI. The Privacy Rule requires those organizations that are governed by HIPAA (covered entities) to implement safeguards to protect the privacy of PHI, and gives individuals the right to access and share their health records.

Today’s threat actors often carry out cyber attacks with the primary objective of accessing and exfiltrating sensitive information from your IT environment. Efforts to obtain this “crown jewel” information usually involve complex multi-phase cyber attacks. But another way in which sensitive data ends up in the hands of malicious actors with a lot less effort is when an organization exposes sensitive data assets in a data leak incident.

It's not uncommon to hear about businesses storing large volumes of personal data. There are endless reasons as to why personal data may be collected and processed, such as to build user profiles in order to send targeted products and services. However, many businesses fail to consider what should be done with the data once it has served its purpose, without negatively influencing their reputation and infringing upon a data subjects' rights.