There used to be natural friction built into sharing information. Files lived in locked cabinets, and you would have to physically photocopy documents, walk them out of the building, or mail them somewhere. Today, entire databases can be sent across the world in seconds, and all it takes is a few clicks.
However, the speed and ease that make modern business possible also make data protection so easy to get wrong. Employees can accidentally expose data with one wrong click, and cybercriminals can exploit that same convenience to steal it just as quickly when employees don’t know what to watch for.
Most Breaches Don’t Start With Exploits but With People
According to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, which analyzed over 22,000 security incidents, most breaches don’t start with a technical exploit. In 60% of cases, they start with an employee making a simple mistake, such as clicking a link they shouldn’t have, using a weak password, or accidentally sending a file to the wrong person.
There are several reasons why employees play such a central role in data breaches:
- They control the access points. Every password, login credential, and file permission your team manages is a potential entry point, and most employees are juggling dozens of these simultaneously while trying to do their actual jobs.
- They’re making constant decisions without visibility into risk. When someone forwards an email or uploads a file to the cloud, there’s often no warning label or sensitivity indicator (just the assumption that if the system allows it, it must be safe).
- Work environments prioritize speed over security. Many software applications and IT environments in general are designed to make sharing easy, to remember passwords, and to default to convenience. The path of least resistance is often the riskiest one.
- The sheer volume is overwhelming. Employees make hundreds of micro-decisions daily about what’s safe to click, who to share files with, and which apps to use. Often, they make them without clear guidance on which choices carry actual risk.
Given these realities, the statistics start to make sense, and they also reveal where the opportunity lies. While you can’t eliminate human involvement in data handling (nor should you want to), you can give your team the knowledge and tools to recognize risk when they encounter it. Most data protection comes down to a few key practices that employees can integrate into their existing routines.
Top 6 Data Protection Best Practices for Employees
The practices below are straightforward habits that address the most common ways data gets exposed by employees in everyday work. For each practice, we’ll also cover what organizations can do to make these habits easier to follow at both the organizational and technical levels.
1. Pause Before You Click
The single most important habit for data protection is deceptively simple: stop and think before you click anything. This applies to links in emails, attachments from external senders, download buttons on websites, pop-up notifications, and even messages from colleagues that seem slightly unusual.
Be especially cautious of anything that creates urgency or pressure to act immediately, whether it’s a supposed security alert, an unexpected invoice, or a message claiming your account will be suspended. When something feels off (even slightly), verify it through a different channel before taking action.
How organizations can support this best practice: Email security features like Microsoft Defender’s Safe Links and Safe Attachments scan messages in real-time to check URLs and attachments against known threats before they reach employees’ inboxes.
2. Store and Share Files Through Approved Channels Only
When you need to share a file quickly, the easiest option isn’t always the safest one. Personal email accounts, consumer file-sharing services, and instant messengers might be convenient, but they sit outside your company’s security controls and leave no audit trail of who accessed what.
If you’re working with any business information (customer lists, financial data, project files, even internal presentations) use only the platforms your IT team has approved. This usually means company-sanctioned cloud storage like Microsoft OneDrive or SharePoint, internal file servers, or secure collaboration tools your organization has vetted.
How organizations can support this best practice: Make the approved channels genuinely easy to use. If your secure options are slower or more complicated than personal alternatives, employees will find workarounds. Implement cloud storage solutions with proper access controls and sharing permissions, and consider Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools that can automatically detect and block sensitive information from being shared through unauthorized channels.
3. Know When You’re Handling Information That Needs Extra Protection
Not all business data carries the same risk. For example, internal meeting agendas or draft blog posts can be shared relatively freely, while customer names paired with credit card numbers, employee Social Security numbers, patient health records, proprietary financial data, or unreleased product specifications require much stricter handling.
Always pause to confirm what category of data you’re handling and proceed appropriately. If it contains personal, financial, health, or confidential business details, limit access to those with a legitimate need (least privilege), use approved storage and encrypted channels, and avoid copying it into personal devices or unvetted tools.
How organizations can support this best practice: Most employees can’t protect data they don’t recognize as sensitive, which is why clear classification systems matter. Microsoft Purview lets you define sensitivity labels that travel with the data across Microsoft 365, can enforce encryption and usage restrictions, and visibly mark content in Office apps, SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive.
4. Treat Your Work Device Like It Has a Target on It
Your work laptop, phone, or tablet contains access to everything. That makes it valuable to attackers, which means it needs to be treated accordingly. Lock your device every single time you step away from it, even if you’re just grabbing coffee or walking to a meeting room. And if it gets lost or stolen, report it to IT immediately.
Additionally, it’s important to keep software updated so that vulnerabilities with the potential to be exploited remotely are fixed as soon as possible. As annoying as it is to close everything and restart, it’s better than the alternative.
How organizations can support this best practice: Enforce device security through Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions like Microsoft Intune that can require encryption, enforce screen lock policies, and ensure devices stay updated automatically. Set up conditional access policies that block outdated or unencrypted devices from accessing company resources. Enable remote wipe capabilities so IT can erase data from lost or stolen devices before it’s compromised.
5. Use Strong, Unique Passwords
Stolen credentials were responsible for 22% of breaches in the latest Verizon report, and attackers actively exploit the fact that most people reuse the same password across multiple accounts. When one service gets breached and your password leaks, that same credential can unlock your work email, file storage, and everything else where you used it.
That’s why you should always create a strong, unique password or passphrase and avoid sharing them with colleagues who “just need quick access” to something.
How organizations can support this best practice: Require MFA across all business systems and applications. This is non-negotiable given that more than 99.9% of compromised accounts didn’t have MFA enabled. Fortunately, solutions like Microsoft Authenticator make it easy.
6. Report Anything That Feels Off (Even If You’re Not Sure)
Security incidents are almost always easier and cheaper to fix when they’re caught early. If something seems unusual (a strange email claiming to be from your CEO, an unexpected account lockout, a file you didn’t create appearing in your folders, system slowdowns, or pop-ups you haven’t seen before), report it to IT immediately.
Security teams would much rather investigate ten suspicious emails that turn out to be harmless than miss the one real threat that leads to a breach. The few minutes it takes to send a quick message to IT could prevent an incident that costs your organization millions.
How organizations can support this best practice: Create a dead-simple reporting process, such as a dedicated email address, Slack channel, or ticketing system that employees can use without needing to fill out forms or navigate complex procedures. Also, you can recognize employees who report suspicious activity to reinforce that vigilance is valued.
Conclusion
Data protection is a company-wide responsibility that depends on employees making better decisions and organizations giving them the tools to succeed. The six practices outlined here won’t eliminate every risk, but they address the vulnerabilities that lead to most breaches. Schedule a conversation with us at OSIbeyond so that we can help you implement these and other best practices in your organization.