Beacon & Decoy Technology: A Four-Pronged Approach to Proactive Data Protection
Hindsight is 20/20, but when it comes to keeping an eye on your company’s data, hindsight can be too little, too late—it’s much better to have 20/20 foresight. That’s the idea behind beacon and decoy technology.
Beacon and decoy solutions are a preemptive strike against a breach of your company’s most sensitive material.
They employ the following four-pronged approach to place you a step ahead of malicious hackers, misguided employees, and anyone else whose activity threatens the security of your company’s digital files. From this vantage point, it’s easy to spot and skirt data disaster.
1. User Recognition
Think of a beacon and decoy system as a digital private eye, covertly observing your data security situation and reporting back with actionable insights.
You’ve seen the movies—the best way to gather intelligence is to have an ally on the inside feeding you information. Beacons and decoys act as your informants! Once downloaded to a device, they surreptitiously monitor how end-users regularly interact with their machines. After the technology learns what normal use looks like, it can identify unusual behavior and alert you of any potential breaches.
2. Deception
With an understanding of the status quo, your virtual private eye employs decoys to subtly shake things up—and beacons to ensure that your data isn’t caught in the crossfire.
The system marks select files (e.g., an Excel spreadsheet containing client credit card information) with beacons that function like a tracking device for your data. Disguised as hacker bait, beaconized data is distributed throughout your network, device or share points.
3. Alerts
If a hacker takes the bait and attempts to move or access the decoy data, your virtual private eye springs into action to protect the sensitive data and calls for backup.
A message alerting you of the suspected data ex-filtration attempt immediately appears on the beacon and decoy system’s easy-to-read dashboard. You’re provided with all known forensic information, including the file’s place of origin and current geo-location. Data protection in action.
4. Defense
This is the point at which the private investigation evolves into a sting operation. Now that you have all relevant details, you can determine the appropriate data defense strategy for data protection.
The dashboard presents options such as screen locks and encryption. Once you’ve made your selection, the beacon and decoy system automatically takes all measures to guarantee that your data remains just that.
Your best defense is a good offense. Beacon and decoy technology lets you harness the power of 20/20 foresight for proactive data protection.
At Abrahams Consulting, we help you find and implement the best data protection solutions to secure, store, connect, and build your organization.
Contact us to learn more about this discrete and sophisticated cyber security solution.
