The main channels of data leaks from Russian companies have been named

In 2024, one of the main threats to Russian business is leaks of confidential information. The main channels of data leaks were messengers (35% of all incidents) and corporate e-mail (23%). This was reported to Izvestia by the Solar Group of Companies on February 20.

Experts noted that in half of the cases messengers are used to transfer trade secrets. Scans of any official documents, such as scans of signatures, can significantly affect the market: for example, if information about financial problems of a large company becomes available to third parties.

Experts have pointed out that leaks in organizations are more often caused by negligence than by malicious intent. The human factor remains the main reason for the increase in the number of compromised data. For example, 82% of incidents in organizations are caused by employee error, while only 18% are the result of intentional actions.

In the case of corporate email, there are situations where an employee may scan their passport and send it to their personal email, believing it is not a breach. However, if an employee sends his or her personal data from a work computer to a personal address, this is considered a transfer of the individual's personal data outside the company. For Roskomnadzor, this constitutes a violation related to misuse and transfer of sensitive data without protection measures. In a negative scenario, an organization could face significant sanctions, the analysts explained.

In 15% of cases, the leak occurs through the publication of information in open sources on the Internet, cloud storage and file sharing. Further on the frequency of incidents experts named the situation with removable media (12%), which, like file-sharing, are most often used with malicious intent to download client databases and other large amounts of data. In addition, another 12% of information is leaked as a result of showing the screen to third parties during videoconferences. The least common way attackers use printing on a printer (3%) to steal sensitive data. This is usually due to the fact that printed documents are more difficult to remove from work and the printing process may attract the attention of colleagues.

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At the same time, the financial sector remains one of the most vulnerable, outpacing the public sector and IT industry in terms of leakage.

"Internal information security threats can come from any employee with access to confidential data, so it is necessary to raise security awareness to make employees active participants in the information protection process. A legal entity, taking care of the security of confidential data, protects first of all its interests and minimizes the risk of imposing negotiable fines in case of personal data leakage. An important role in this process is assigned to information protection systems of DLP class, which control the transfer of confidential data and prevent their leakage," said Dmitry Meshavkin, Solar Dozor product manager of Solar Group.

According to him, the organization should also establish a process of training and periodic certification of personnel on the rules of critical information processing, which will reduce the number of incidents associated with leaks of confidential data.

Earlier, on January 16, it was reported that Roskomnadzor recorded 135 cases of distribution of personal data bases on the Internet. They contained more than 710 million records about Russians.