Money does indeed make the world go round — but so does data. Today’s companies are fuelled by data they collect from their customers, their operations, and their applications. The businesses that make the best use of this data, whether it’s to make strategic decisions for the business or determine what updates to make to their offering, are the ones that are bound to lead their industries. However, they can’t get very far if they don’t secure their data.
As data and analytics have cemented themselves as core functions for successful businesses, they’ve also caught the attention of bad actors. Cyber criminals are increasingly intent on stealing data from companies and organizations. In fact, in 2022 alone, there were a total 4,100 reported data breaches which exposed billions of data records. These breaches can be expensive — the average cost of a breach is currently estimated to be $4.45 million — and they can also make a massive dent in a company’s reputation.
With data becoming such a prime target for attackers, companies have to do more to secure their critical information — whether that’s personally identifiable information (PII) of customers and employees, or proprietary information. What follows are five recommendations for things you can do to keep your business’s data secure.
1. Establish your security strategy
Your security strategy will act as the foundation for multiple security measures in your business, including data protection. Work with your security team to establish clear goals and objectives, and set a maturity roadmap for the short and long term. As you build out your data protection strategy, you’ll need to understand the following:
- How much data your business has, and how sensitive (or not) it is
- What is already being done well, and what gaps exist in terms of protecting your critical data
- The areas that need immediate attention from a data protection perspective
2. Choose the right technology solutions
While having a comprehensive and multifaceted security strategy is vital for protecting your data, you also need a robust security tech stack that may include tower servers to help execute on that strategy. As you pick the tools that will keep your data secure — from identity and access management tools to cloud access security broker (CASB) tools — keep a few of these questions in mind:
- How well does the tool integrate with your existing solutions?
- Is it designed for use cases that are common in your business?
- Has it been used by other companies in your sector?
- Does it help you meet security goals of increased visibility, proactive action, and rapid response?
- Will it enable your teams to do more, securely?
3. Focus on access control
The most important thing you can do when it comes to protecting your data is setting parameters around who can access that data, and when. Evaluate your data and set clear rules and permissions around who can access certain types of data (e.g. by role). The principle of least privilege can also help here: users get more access to data as they get more seniority, or by necessity. The idea here is to ensure that people only have access to the data they need to do their job or execute on a third-party partnership, and no more.
4. Encrypt your data
Your data is valuable, and it exists in many forms including PDFs, databases, and when shared by APIs. With encryption, you can encode the data so that it can only be accessed with a ciphertext. This means that even if the data is stolen, it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to decipher by the bad actors.
Encryption should be used for data in all states — whether it’s in transit or at rest. That way, you can take the security to the data itself and not just rely on the protections set at the database, API gateway, or endpoint level to protect the information.
5. Establish a culture of security
Many corporate breaches happen because a user fell prey to a social engineering attack or because they had poor password hygiene. To truly give impact to your data protection efforts, you need to get the whole company on board. You can take a change management approach here: get your executives on board, assign ambassadors within each department to engage employees in adopting better security practices, roll out new technologies and practices in a phased and highly informational approach, and consider gamifying anything you can. Some companies, for instance, will even have dedicated security weeks where employees are invited to participate in security-oriented quizzes and puzzles for points and prizes.
Data protection is a strategic business driver
Today, more than ever, companies need to prioritize data protection. Not only will it help them abide by regulatory mandates and help give their customers and employees peace of mind, but it can also help move the business forward. If your business is equipped with the right strategy, policies, and technologies, then your teams can rely on those measures and spend their time focusing on more strategic tasks. Knowing that they are operating in an environment that prioritizes security, employees can better leverage the data available to them to make important decisions, foster innovation, and support creative problem solving as the business becomes more competitive.