Securing the Data Ecosystem | VentureBeat

Organizations are often under pressure to decide how to prioritize what is important when it comes to data management. Just as often, they make hasty decisions to comply with industry and regulatory standards. Some prioritize concerns about cybersecurity threats and data leakage over cost-efficiency. Many do not know that data management can protect against cyber attacks and be cost-effective at the same time. The growth of big data in the digital world is extraordinary. Developing an efficient data management strategy is key to securing your organization’s data ecosystem.

Data management may seem daunting due to the sheer volume of data that is being produced on a daily basis. It’s no easy task, but smart management technologies and data management best practices can help your organization avoid the consequences of poor data management that lead to high costs and vulnerability to cyberattacks.

Understand ROT data

There are three types of data: redundant, obsolete, and trivial — also known as ROT data. The more ROT data a company has, the higher the risk of becoming a victim of a cyber attack. Businesses can mitigate risk and reduce costs by understanding their ROT data.

Redundancies often arise because of our conditioning to keep multiple copies of the same data set, because we’ve been told that it’s best to keep everything. Stale data is just that: data that is outdated and no longer relevant. Trivial data is data that no longer serves a purpose and takes up storage space on servers while slowing down processing. Organizations can address this issue by knowing what data to keep, delete, or sort.

Another challenge that comes with ROT data is data storage – organizations work with the conditioning of having to keep data and end up storing it in the cloud. While the cloud might seem like a low-cost solution since the cost per gigabyte is very low, ROT data is quickly driving up monthly storage fees. In response, companies buy disk after disk to support this growth, but then in five years they run out of disk space and have accumulated an abundance of disks.

The way to secure your data

First, organizations need to identify what data needs to be retained, whether it’s required for business operations or to comply with the organization’s compliance regulations – for example, financial data must be retained for seven years for a SOX audit. In contrast, GDPR laws in Europe dictate that user data should be deleted once it is no longer needed.

Data archiving methods that manage unstructured data in a sophisticated and cost-effective manner can save your company a lot of money. The door also opens for data to be used as a critical business asset that can be easily mined and put to good use. For some companies, master records or archives of certain sensitive data should be retained as long as they cannot be copied or accessed through unauthorized actions.

Intensive monitoring and authorization of security events is also good practice. This helps identify access controls, which are incredibly useful for securing corporate data, and gives data stakeholders visibility into incoming threats, latent or introduced data vulnerabilities, and potential privacy or compliance issues.

Organizations can quickly identify and resolve issues by setting automated data search policies to keep up with current compliance regulation protocols. A practical example of this is sharing medical information without signed forms or failing to delete account information when it is no longer needed.

Businesses shouldn’t have to turn a blind eye to increasing cybersecurity threats and data leaks because they don’t know about cost-effective data management solutions. Businesses should become aware of data management strategies that help identify and organize data, what to keep, delete, or sort. We are changing the digital world by securing the data ecosystem. These not only help companies to create new value – they are a decisive factor in reducing costs and preventing cyber attacks.

Adrian Knapp is CEO and founder of Aparavi.