The Case for Data Centric Security

It’s 10:00 – Do you know where your data is?

If your job is securing data, it’s growing harder to get a good night’s sleep. According to Forbes, the financial cost of a major data breach “may reach as much as $18 billion, once all is said and done.”

The frequency of data breach incidents continues to increase. The cost per lost record is rising as well. But none of these concerns (total cost, breach frequency, cost per record) is the main worry of IT staff: Instead, IT professions wonder WHERE their sensitive data is.

It’s 10:00 – Do you know where your data is?

According to recent research by the Ponemon Institute, there is a specific concern that robs IT security professionals of a peaceful night’s rest: They don’t know where their organization’s sensitive or confidential data resides.

After surveying more than 1,500 responders, across 16 industries, Ponemon discovered the following:

• 57% say the unknown location of their sensitive or confidential data keeps them awake.
• Only 23% say their company data access levels are appropriate.
• Only 16% know where sensitive structured data is located.
• Only 7% know where sensitive unstructured data resides.

To explore these fascinating findings, read “Ponemon Report: Hidden Data is Your Biggest Nightmare“.

A lack of visibility into data workflow creates excessive risk. This is why organizations must consider the power of data centric security. Data centric security allows you to assign a policy, when data is created, that follows that data, wherever it proliferates. If you work in data security, what would help you sleep better? Would you rest easy if you knew you could:

1. Discover all instances of sensitive data?
2. Visualize the risk?
3. Map the common source of proliferation?

If you could secure data at its source, throughout its life-cycle, why wouldn’t you? After all, if I had $18 billion dollars in my wallet, I’d sleep better if I knew where I set it down.

This post was originally published on the Informatica blog