Data security and compliance

Data is the most precious and indispensable resource for digital operations in any contemporary business. To make sure this data keeps the value it has for an organization, you should:

1. Protect it against any unauthorized access (confidentiality).
2. Maintain its integrity through ongoing maintenance of consistency, accuracy and reliability throughout its lifecycle (integrity).
3. Ensure information is consistently and readily accessible for authorized people and processes (availability).

The fallout for organizations who fail at a proper data security regime can be much bigger than just crippled or interrupted processes. Think about reputational damage, loss of trust, legal penalties, liability toward customers, financial losses and even job losses.

Cybersecurity is aimed at reducing the risk of cyberattacks against the unauthorized exploitation of digital facilities, whereas data security covers securing data throughout its lifecycle, while keeping its confidentiality, integrity and availability current.

Data is the most precious resource for an organization, and therefore, most cyberattacks are aiming to get access to that data, residing in the digital facilities they target. Aligning cybersecurity and data security can give organizations synergy benefits and the correct security focus as a whole.

The role of data security is to secure data against any unauthorized access, maintaining its integrity and always keeping it available.

Anyone who has access to internal data or digital facilities represents a potential security risk. Internal threats are less visible and often overlooked while organizations focus on the external threats. Organizations are placing security measures aimed at keeping outside threats out. While internal threats are less likely to occur, they are far more dangerous to an organization’s data and digital systems because of the already established trust relationship. The amount of data and the value of that data is rapidly increasing, so as the global economy becomes more uncertain and/or a worker becomes disgruntled, they might be tempted into the ultimate betrayal!