Data Fencing: Building a Strong Web Security Perimeter

Data fencing security: Cybercriminals are opportunists. As the level of interaction between users and websites escalates an increasing amount of private data is being exposed in the browser – and these criminals are ready to pounce. 

The subsequent exacerbation of client-side cyberattacks is a symptom of businesses expanding their investment in the end-user digital experience without reinforcing their cybersecurity controls. In 2023, the global average cost of a data breach – the biggest risk of a client-side attack – reached $4.45 million, a 15% increase over the last 3 years.

Amid this relentless barrage of threats, the fragility of web security perimeters is being exposed. Whether they have been the victim of client-side attacks or feel they could be next, businesses are becoming acutely aware of the need to implement proactive measures to safeguard sensitive data by controlling and restricting access to it – known as data fencing.

Recognizing you must do something to fence off your data is not enough. Businesses must understand how to prevent unauthorized users or processes from accessing, modifying, or stealing valuable information – and take necessary action.

Unfortunately, data fencing blindspots lead to gaps in the web security perimeter that cybercriminals are primed to exploit – perpetuating the proliferation of client-side attacks. So, what are the benefits of data fencing and how do you go about solving this data security dilemma?

Data fencing: why?

Data fencing supports a fundamental element of data security that has its roots in regulatory compliance: data integrity. This assurance that digital information is uncorrupted and can only be accessed or modified by authorized users fosters data that are complete, accurate, consistent, and safe throughout its lifecycle.

With integrity at its core, robust data fencing offers compelling benefits that combine to build a strong web security perimeter:

Data protection

By setting up access controls – we’ll get onto that later – you can ensure that only authorized users or systems can access specific data, reducing the risk of costly data breaches. Protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access and manipulation is crucial to maintaining its confidentiality, integrity, and availability – and the reputation of your business. 

Regulatory compliance

A slew of new and existing data privacy laws, regulations, and standards, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), have been introduced to reinforce defense against a backdrop of escalating client-side attacks – both in terms of frequency and sophistication. 

By maintaining data confidentiality, integrity, and availability, fencing can align your business with regulatory requirements and industry standards – shielding it from the legal and financial consequences of non-compliance. 

Data availability

If data is compromised, inaccessible, missing, or incomplete, the performance and continuity of your business will suffer. By restricting unauthorized access to sensitive data, data fencing can also ensure that the right people have timely access to the data they need and that it remains useful – promoting data availability while maintaining security. 

Customizable policies

Data fencing empowers you to establish specific access control policies that align with your business’s unique data security and management requirements. These policies can be tailored to different data types and user roles and can adapt to the dynamic cyber landscape as data evolves and new threats emerge – maintaining your resilience.

Trust and reputation

Data breaches can harm your business’ reputation and erode the trust of customers, partners, investors, and stakeholders. Implementing strong data fencing measures and communicating them clearly will help you build and maintain trust and reputation by reassuring them that their data is secure amid the prevalent threat of cyber-attacks. 

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Data fencing: how?

There’s no silver bullet for safeguarding your business’s data. The process of creating a protective virtual boundary around sensitive data to control access and usage is multifaceted. 

Let’s explore the arsenal of methods that you can leverage to build a strong web security perimeter:

Data classification

This process of ranking data sensitivity within a system using pre-defined categories – typically Public, Private, Internal, Confidential, and Restricted – provides the foundations for fencing. Once the data has been categorized, you can achieve a ‘need to ‘know’ approach to data security by tailoring measures for each category and determining what data is public versus private – making it easier to access and secure.

A robust classification system safeguards highly sensitive data, such as customers' personal information, and helps you focus on confidentiality and security policy requirements, such as user permissions and encryption.

Data encryption

Data encryption is a web security measure that defends your sensitive data against cyber-attacks, including malware and ransomware. Encryption algorithms disarrange the data transmitted between the user's browser and the web server, making it exceptionally difficult for cybercriminals to intercept and decipher.

This technique for translating data from plaintext (unencrypted) to ciphertext (encrypted) permits users to access encrypted data with an encryption key and decrypted data with a decryption key – securing transmitted data on the cloud and computer systems.

For example, secure communication protocols like HTTPS and SSL/TLS are used to perform web form fencing through encryption. By encrypting sensitive form data, you can ensure its integrity, authenticate the server, and create a trust framework through certificate authorities.

Data masking

Like encryption, data masking is an obfuscation method that transforms data to make it unintelligible for security purposes. Unlike encrypted data, which will always have an encryption key to view the initial data set, masking permanently replaces the original data with fictional data that looks similar. With all the authentic data masked, it becomes useless if intercepted by an attacker. 

To be effective, the masked data must preserve the distinguishing characteristics of the original unmasked data to ensure requests and analysis still produce the desired results. This requires the new masked data set to sustain referential integrity across systems and databases.

Tokenization

Tokenization is the process of replacing sensitive data with non-sensitive identification symbols – referred to as tokens – that can’t be exploited but still retain the essential elements of the data.

De-tokenization retrieves the original data element associated with a given token. Applications often necessitate access to the original data or a specific component of it to make informed decisions, conduct analysis, or facilitate personalized messaging. To reduce de-tokenization and mitigate security risks, tokens can preserve certain attributes of the original data. This enables the utilization of token values for processing and analysis, rather than exposing the original data in full.

This technique is typically used to reinforce the security of e-commerce transactions by tokenizing the data so that organizations can use and process credit cards without storing them in the application database. Moreover, it reduces the cost and complexity of compliance with industry standards and government regulations.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)/ Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a multi-step account login process that requires users to provide more than one method of authentication from independent categories of credentials. 

MFA secures data by augmenting the traditional username and password authentication (something you know) with something you have, like a one-time code or response to a push notification, and/or something you are, such as a fingerprint or facial recognition.

This layered approach to web security places more than one barrier in the defence of a network or database for an attacker to breach. 

According to Microsoft, 99.9% of the compromised accounts they track every month don't use MFA –  a powerful testament to its effectiveness in protecting data and systems from cybercriminals.

Reinforce network security

Network security is a catch-all term to describe the security solutions available to better protect your sensitive data from being accessed and compromised. Tools like antivirus software, virtual private networks (VPN), and firewalls help to create a secure IT environment for users by protecting the integrity of your computer network and the data within it.

For example, each day, the AV-TEST Institute registers over 450,000 new malicious programs (malware) and potentially unwanted applications (PUA) – amplifying the value of these tools for your business in guarding against malicious attacks.

Conclusion

Equipped with an understanding of the benefits that data fencing brings, and knowledge of the methods that underpin it, you can erect a web security perimeter that keeps your data in and cybercriminals out. 

By fortifying sensitive data against cyber-attacks, your business will achieve data integrity and reap the rewards that come with it: enhanced reputation, regulatory compliance, informed decision-making, business continuity, and competitive advantage.