Organizations handling sensitive data entrusted by their customers have their work cut out for them. The information they hold is vital in creating hassle-free transactions and improving the user experience. However, this entails a robust cybersecurity system as these data may include credit card information, names, login credentials, and the like.
Bad actors are perpetually trying to steal this data for personal gain. According to Nasdaq, 2021 saw an unprecedented level of data breaches, with 1,862 cases affecting 294 million people and exposing 18.5 million records.
A business’s success relies heavily on keeping customer data secure, so it should have an established and proven system to prevent any identity theft and fraud attempts. But, how can this be done effectively?
What Is Customer Identity Data?
The abundance of technology and devices makes it increasingly difficult to identify consumers. But with customer identity data, you can easily determine your users and give them a seamless experience no matter what device they’re on. Customer identity data includes their device ID or model connected to their profile.
For example, third-party cookies track your customers’ behavior across different channels and apps. The information cookies can provide helps you enrich customer data and target the right audiences to promote your ads. Typically, profiles come from authenticated identifiers like logins, reference numbers, etc., letting you pinpoint the specific person instead of guessing who they are.
4 Ways Customer Identity Can Be Effectively Secured
1. Storage Encryption
This method ensures the safety of identity data by encrypting them during the transfer to storage devices and on the storage media, including hard disks, tape drives, libraries, and arrays. Encryption is essential for storage security as it prevents unauthorized users from accessing the information without the decryption key. Whether they are sensitive or not, this strategy can protect all your important data.
2. SOC 2 Compliance
SOC 2 is a standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs to ensure that organizations handle data, especially sensitive customer data, with utmost security. This provides two types of reports to certify your company’s data security.
SOC 2 Type 1 provides information about your organization’s systems and their adherence to the relevant trust principles. Meanwhile, SOC 2 Type 2 presents the effectiveness of those systems in action. Passing both of these assures your customers that their data are in safe hands as they understand how to protect your data and identity online based on the quality of your cybersecurity measures.
3. Simplified Identity Management
Identity management is an essential process in identity and access management (IAM) systems as it helps you determine whether the person is who they say they are. This includes identifying, authenticating, and authorizing users to access particular systems according to their roles.
The process limits the people who have access to sensitive customer data and restricts unauthorized users, lowering the risks of data breaches.
4. Transaction Protection
Also known as attach-time security or transaction-attach security, this strategy keeps your customer data safe by ensuring that users who execute a transaction are authorized to do so. Customer information control systems (CICS) and their apps need transaction protection to prevent unauthorized individuals from running transactions without the proper credentials.
This provides an extra layer of protection against malicious entities from accessing a company’s database where their customers’ identity data is stored.
Protect Your Customer Data At All Times
Customers have entrusted their data to organizations for a more personalized and improved user experience. Thus, companies are responsible for safekeeping them and ensuring a seamless experience. However, malicious entities will try to find ways to obtain and use these data for personal gain.
For this reason, a robust cybersecurity system that can effectively secure customer data is essential. So, if you’re looking to strengthen your cybersecurity, Q5id can offer you the best identity proofing and authentication solutions to keep your customers’ identities safe online.
