Data Security

What is Data Security?

Data security is part of information security pertaining specifically to data. It contains the processes and controls involved in protecting digital information from unauthorized access, theft, alteration, or destruction. This includes sensitive and confidential data such as personal information, financial records, intellectual property, and trade secrets. Failing to protect this data can have serious consequences, such as financial loss, reputation damage, and legal action. 

To be effective, it requires a combination of technical and organizational measures. It requires in-depth data discovery and classification across the entire corporate infrastructure, including virtual and cloud environments.

Data security involves identifying what data exists, where it resides, and how it is protected. How it is currently protected sets the baseline for the current posture. Once the data security posture is defined, it requires continual monitoring. This ensures that changes made throughout its lifespan are taken into account. 

These changes may include things like data shifting from an encrypted data store to an unencrypted store or a permissions change. If a change made places data at risk, monitoring could trigger alerts, allowing staff to remediate and avoid potential security threats.

Why is Data Security Important?

Security failures related to data come with direct financial repercussions. According to IBM, the average direct cost of a data breach is $4.35 million, which includes identification and remediation. Unfortunately, this cost does not include the additional costs due to reputation damage, such as lost business and legal actions. 

Depending on the data type, it may also fall under different regulations or compliance frameworks. Laws such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and SOX, along with industry rules such as PCI, specify how data should be protected. They also have strict penalties for failure to comply. These include fines, mandatory corrective action programs, and even jail time for executives. 

Data security is critical for building and maintaining trust and reputation. Organizations gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace by taking a proactive approach to data security. Customers and stakeholders expect the companies they work with to protect their personal and confidential information.

Data security breaches erode trust and damage reputation, leading to a loss of business and revenue. Robust data security makes a company stand above its competitors and offers a competitive edge. This is because consumers and business partners are increasingly aware of data security. Now more than ever, people are cautious about how their data is handled. 

Data Privacy vs. Data Security

When looking at data security, it is essential to note the overlap between it and data privacy. Data security focuses on protecting digital information from unauthorized access, theft, alteration, or destruction. It safeguards data from external threats such as hackers, viruses, and malware. Yet it ensures that data is available to authorized users when needed.

Data privacy protects personal information, including how it is collected, used, stored, and shared. It focuses on helping individuals control their personal information. It demands organizations collect and use the personal data of individuals transparently and ethically.

While personal data is an aspect of data security, the additional control and use aspects expand beyond a pure security scope. The most advanced solutions address data security and privacy concerns, helping organizations simultaneously meet both goals.

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Use Cases for Data Security

In most industries, there is generally one or more use cases for data security that is applicable to them. 

1. Protecting Personal and Financial Data - This is a broad category of data types. It includes sensitive information such as credit card numbers, bank account details, email addresses, physical addresses, and social security numbers. Failure to protect this information has financial, reputational, legal, and compliance implications for the organization. 

2. Securing Intellectual Property - Most companies have sensitive intellectual property such as trade secrets, proprietary algorithms, and product designs. These are critical to protecting from unauthorized access or theft. It could be highly harmful to the organization if leaked, allowing competitors to gain a competitive advantage.

3. Compliance With Regulations - There are many data protection regulations. Some well-known ones are General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Appropriate security measures can help organizations comply with these regulations. This creates a solid security posture to prevent breaches and avoid penalties.

4. Protecting Against Cyber Attacks - Attackers have a range of tactics at their fingertips. Phishing, malware, and ransomware all compromise data security, often by tricking unwitting users. Steps to harden the security posture helps prevent cybercriminals from accessing data, even when taking advantage of trusted users. 

5. Ensuring Business Continuity - Anytime data is lost due to a security breach, disrupts business operations, and requires downtime to remediate. Proactive defenses against a breach reduce disruptions and outages, resulting in direct cost savings over time. 

6. Cloud Data Security - Increased adoption of cloud computing has increased organizational attack surfaces, driving the need for improved data security. Many traditional security measures don’t operate optimally in cloud services, requiring targeted solutions to protect data in the cloud.

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Managing Data Security with Dig

Not all data security software is made equally, with many having limited capabilities in the cloud and virtual environments. Dig Security uniquely implements data security by providing a comprehensive, end-to-end approach to data security management. It unifies static and dynamic monitoring to offer a complete data security solution in complex, multi-cloud environments. This approach helps organizations discover, classify, protect, and govern their cloud data, ensuring the highest levels of security and compliance.

Dig Security offers data security posture management (DSPM) and data detection and response (DDR) capabilities. Both meet the unique needs of today’s organizations around multi-cloud and big data security. By integrating these solutions, Dig Security provides a comprehensive data security strategy.

Dig's comprehensive strategy addresses different aspects of data security, including cloud infrastructure security, data protection, and real-time data detection & response. Dig's approach enables security teams to focus on the most strategic data assets and de-risk cloud architecture.

Dig Security's data security solutions provide significant advantages over traditional security solutions. It leverages advanced technologies that transform cloud data security, enhancing security. At the same time, it reduces the burden that IT and security teams face.

Dig Security is a game changer, unifying static and dynamic monitoring. This reduces the chance of and minimizes the impact of data breaches. It improves existing security controls so organizations can protect their sensitive data and prevent potential data breaches or ransomware attacks.

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