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Data security is the staple of a successful business in this era, and most businesses invest into at least basic cyber security. After all, it’s much more affordable when compared to the aftermath of a data breach. Before you implement security measures that will keep your business and reputation safe, you should know what type of data you deal with, and you can do that with data discovery tools.
What’s Data Discovery and How Does It Help My Business?
The importance of data discovery in cyber security is experiencing rapid growth because of stricter regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) that mandate all businesses should be well aware of what kind of data they collect and how they use it. But what is data discovery anyway?
Data discovery is a business process of collecting and analysing data to gain insight into trends and patterns. This insight helps businesses shape their critical business decisions.
And while most businesses today will happily collect data to make data-driven decisions, they will often fail to store and protect that data in a systematic and logical manner.
This causes two critical issues:
- When data is disorganised, it will impact data analysis and affect the end result, which can lead to bad business decisions.
- Disorganisation also increases the risk of data being accessed by unauthorised entities, either through a data breach or because it was accidentally disclosed by an employee.
Data discovery helps businesses not only collect and analyse data, but it also shows them where and how data is stored and who has access to it, which gives them a good idea of how safe that data really is.
Data Discovery in Cyber Security
Because data discovery provides quite a number of benefits to a business, it’s safe to assume it can help with cyber security too. So what’s the best way to use data discovery in cyber security, and what benefits will this bring?
It is the first step to becoming GDPR compliant. Businesses gather all kinds of data to gain insight into the latest trends and preferences, and for this purpose, they often store sensitive data from their users and customers.
- GDPR requires that ALL businesses that deal with personally identifiable information (PII) from EU citizens to disclose they are using and storing this data.
- In addition, they must have consent from the user/customer to store all that data, and keep records of consent too. If they don’t, they are not allowed to store it.
- Any type of data that can lead to the identification of an individual falls into this category: name, address, online identifiers, ID numbers, IP addresses, even cookie identifiers.
It helps you implement the right cybersecurity measures. It can be hard to choose which cybersecurity measures are the best option for your business.
- Firewalls and secure networks are a good start, but without implementing data discovery in cybersecurity, you won’t have a structured overview of your data, or who has access to it.
- Considering that human error is the most prevalent reason for a data breach, limiting access to data and keeping it on a “need to know” basis is a sound defense against such errors.
- This also helps you implement data encryption that limits further data sharing and disclosing it to somebody without the right authentication.
It helps you identify security threats quickly. When you have a unified and structured overview of your data and can see who accesses it and in what way in real time, you can quickly respond to any type of threats.
- Machine learning and AI solutions can help you automate this process and monitor users’ access and detect any anomalies.
- For example, if there is a sudden surge in data access from a specific access point, you will get a warning to investigate. In case you determine there was indeed a breach, the scope of the breach will be very limited.
Data Discovery Brings Your Cyber Security to a Whole New Level
With increasing volumes of data flowing through your on-prem or cloud data centres, you need solutions that will not only give you insights into trends but what type of data you have, where it’s stored, and how many of your employees have access to it. By structuring your data according to sensitivity levels and implementing solutions that limit access and keep a watchful eye on how it’s used, you will be able to thwart cyber security threats before they become a problem.
Learn more about data discovery by using Microsoft’s AIP scanner in our Udemy course now available at a discounted price.
Check out the TowerWatch Academy for more courses!
