Why It’s Time to Shift your Data Protection Mindset to Assume Breach

There is no denying that falling victim to data breaches in today’s environment has become extremely difficult, if not impossible, to escape. Virtually every business is a potential target. It’s no longer a question of “what if we get breached?”. The reality in which we now operate is “how often will we be breached.” A new cybersecurity study found that 108.9 million accounts were breached in the third quarter of 2022, a whopping 70% increase compared to the previous quarter. It has become abundantly clear that traditional security measures are no longer enough to protect critical data. Instead, we need to go further and adopt new ideas. The “assume breach” mentality rightly re-frames our thinking to operate in such a way that we expect our systems have already been breached. This mindset requires a proactive approach to safeguarding critical assets at their source, which may be a novel shift for many. But relying on conventional breach prevention tactics or a perimeter-only security approach leaves businesses vulnerable and ill-prepared for attacks targeting sensitive data. Instead, by treating environments as if they have already been compromised, organizations can effectively limit the trust placed in at-risk systems, processes, services, and networks. This distrust and ‘worst case scenario’ type of thinking is paramount. The assume breach mentality may feel like overkill initially, but top security professionals have discovered it results in proactive strategies that better protect assets from attackers.

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