Why you need data security services
Businesses today collect an ever-growing amount of sensitive data, known as personally identifiable information (PII), and cyber criminals know it. The number of companies which have experienced a crippling security breach is growing rapidly, and more often than not, it's because they haven't prioritized data security services in their security planning.
Cybercriminals are highly motivated by money. They know that personal information is a highly-valued type of data, and they specifically target companies who they believe can be breached (especially those with high volumes of big data).
And cyber threats are growing. The University of Maryland found that a cyberattack occurs every 39 seconds.
To protect sensitive data from external threats, as well as to comply with data privacy compliance regulations, organizations must implement data security measures that protect their business.
But what is data security and what are data security services? In this blog we take a look at what data security is, why it’s important for your business, and what solutions are included in the “data security services” category.
What is data security?
Data security is an important element of any data protection strategy. In a nutshell, data security focuses on protecting personally identifiable information and other sensitive data from being accessed by unauthorized and malicious cyber threats.
Data security is made up of best practices, technologies and company policies that protect an organization’s sensitive data from both external cybercrime and internal threats that could lead to data loss.
There are two reasons why data security is important. Firstly, because losing data can be hugely expensive for a business, both in terms of cost and the subsequent impact on operational processes.
In fact, according to IBM, the data breach average cost increased 2.6 percent from $4.24 million in 2021 to $4.35 million in 2022. The average cost has climbed 12.7 percent from $3.86 million in the 2020 report - a hugely damaging amount of money!
Secondly, data security is a critical element of complying with data privacy regulations. These regulations - such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the US, or the Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) in Brazil - dictate how private information can be collected, used, stored and processed. In addition, they also require companies to implement data security measures that protect sensitive data from theft.
What are data security services?
Data security services are a collection of policies, best practices and technologies that organizations can implement to better protect their sensitive data against both internal and external threats, all while maintaining data privacy compliance.
By implementing a robust data protection strategy that uses data security services, companies can:
- Gain complete visibility into what they they have and where it lives
- Better protect data and mitigate data security risk
- Simplify data audit and compliance processes
- Optimize team time by using technologies to automate repeatable tasks
What is included in data security services?
Data security services are made of a wide range of technologies and processes. We’ve listed some of the key elements of data security services.
Data discovery: The process of using technology to scan your entire environment to find and identify where both structured and unstructured data resides across your network. Data discovery gives a business complete visibility into where their data lives.
Data classification: The process of identifying and tagging data to organize it into categories based on file type, content, compliance requirements and other metadata, making it easier to locate and retrieve sensitive data.
Data loss prevention: The implementation of technologies and processes that detect and prevent data loss and data leakage across the organization.
Data security strategy: All of the above technologies and policies help to build a company’s overall data security strategy, which improves data protection maturity across the entire business.
Are you interested in learning more about protecting your sensitive data and enhancing your cyber asset attack surface management strategy through improved data security?
Request a demo today and learn how our software has been designed to give your business complete visibility into where its data lives - giving you the insights you need to better protect data.
