Data Security

Data security is the process of safeguarding digital information throughout its entire life cycle to protect it from corruption, theft, or unauthorized access. It covers everything—hardware, software, storage devices, and user devices; access and administrative controls; and organizations’ policies and procedures.

Data security uses tools and technologies that enhance visibility of a company’s data and how it is being used. These tools can protect data through processes like data masking, encryption, and redaction of sensitive information. The process also helps organizations streamline their auditing procedures and comply with increasingly stringent data protection regulations.

A robust data security management and strategy process enables an organization to protect its information against cyberattacks. It also helps them minimize the risk of human error and insider threats, which continue to be the cause of many data breaches. 

Why Is Data Security Important?

Data security is important because it protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your valuable information. This includes personal information, financial data, intellectual property, and other sensitive assets. Without proper data security, you risk:  

There are many reasons why data security is important to organizations in all industries all over the world. Organizations are legally obliged to protect customer and user data from being lost or stolen and ending up in the wrong hands. For example, industry and state regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) outline organizations’ legal obligations to protect data.

Data cybersecurity is also crucial to preventing the reputational risk that accompanies a data breach. A high-profile hack or loss of data can result in customers losing trust in an organization and taking their business to a competitor. This also runs the risk of serious financial losses, along with fines, legal payments, and damage repair in case sensitive data is lost.

Unauthorized access: Hackers can steal your personal information, financial data, or intellectual property.  

• Data breaches: Sensitive information can be leaked or exposed to the public, damaging your reputation and causing financial loss.  
• Identity theft: Your personal information can be used to commit fraud or other crimes in your name.  
• Financial loss: Data breaches can lead to costly legal fees, fines, and remediation efforts.  
• Loss of trust: Customers and partners may lose trust in your organization if their data is compromised.  

By implementing strong data security measures, you can protect yourself and your organization from these risks. Some common data security measures include:

• Strong passwords: Use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts.  
• Encryption: Encrypt your data to make it unreadable to unauthorized users.  
• Firewalls: Use firewalls to protect your network from unauthorized access.  
• Antivirus software: Keep your antivirus software up-to-date to protect against malware.
• Data backups: Regularly back up your data to protect against data loss.  
• Employee training: Educate your employees about data security best practices.

Data Security & Data Privacy

Data Security

• Focus: Protecting data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.
• Methods: Encryption, firewalls, access controls, intrusion detection systems, and data backups.  
• Goal: Ensuring the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of data.  

Data Privacy

• Focus: Protecting individuals’ rights to control their personal data.  
• Aspects: How data is collected, used, shared, and stored.
• Goal: Ensuring data is handled lawfully and fairly, respecting individual privacy rights.  

To summarize:

• Data security is about protecting the data.  
• Data privacy is about controlling the data.  

Data security is a prerequisite for data privacy. You can’t protect individuals’ rights to control their data if the data itself isn’t secure.

Example:

• Data security: Protecting your email account with a strong password and two-factor authentication prevents unauthorized access to your emails.
• Data privacy: Controlling who can read your emails and how your email provider uses your data for targeted advertising.

What is data privacy

Data privacy, on the other hand, involves more subtle, strategic decisions around who gets access to certain kinds of data. Using the same example, another organization may say, “Well, it may help the development team to know if a lot of customers have been paying using PayPal. Then they could decide whether it would be wise to start accepting payoneer, Skrill, or Stripe, too. Let’s give them access to payment info for the next two weeks.”

When it comes to data security in cloud computing or on-premises environments, these kinds of decisions fall more under the purview of data privacy.

What is data security

Data security and data privacy both involve protecting data, but they are different. Data security entails controlling access to data using stark, black-and-white terms. For example, a data security policy may dictate that no one other than someone troubleshooting a database issue is allowed to see customer payment information—period. In that way, you reduce your chances of suffering a data security breach.

Types of Data Security

Data security encompasses a wide range of techniques and technologies to protect information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification and destruction.

Technical Controls

• Encryption: Converts data into an unreadable format, protecting it during transmission and storage.
• Authentication: Verifies the identity of users or devices before granting access.
• Authorization: Determines what actions authorized users can perform on a system or data.
• Access Controls: Restricts access to data based on user roles and permissions.
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS): Monitors networks for suspicious activity and blocks attacks.
• Firewalls: Act as a barrier between a secure and untrusted network.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Identifies, monitors, and protects sensitive data from unauthorized access and exfiltration.

Physical Controls

• Access Controls: Restricts physical access to facilities, servers, and other hardware.
• Surveillance: Uses cameras and other monitoring devices to deter and detect unauthorized access.
• Environmental Controls: Protects hardware from physical damage (e.g., fire suppression systems, climate control).

Administrative Controls

• Security Policies and Procedures: Defines how data is handled within an organization.
• Risk Assessment: Identifies potential threats and vulnerabilities to data.
• Incident Response Plan: Outlines steps to be taken in case of a data breach.
• Employee Training: Educates employees about data security best practices.

Emerging Technologies

• Data Masking: Replaces sensitive data with fake but realistic data for testing and development purposes.
• Tokenization: Replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens for secure storage and transmission.
• Data Resilience: Ensures data availability and recoverability in case of disasters or disruptions.

Biggest Risks

Organizations face an increasingly complex landscape of security threats with cyberattacks being launched by more sophisticated attackers. Some of the biggest risks to data security include:

Accidental Data Exposure

Many data breaches are not a result of hacking but through employees accidentally or negligently exposing sensitive information. Employees can easily lose, share, or grant access to data with the wrong person, or mishandle or lose information because they are not aware of their company’s security policies.

Phishing Attacks

In a phishing attack, a cyber criminal sends messages, typically via email, short message service (SMS), or instant messaging services, that appear to be from a trusted sender. Messages include malicious links or attachments that lead recipients to either download malware or visit a spoofed website that enables the attacker to steal their login credentials or financial information. 

These attacks can also help an attacker compromise user devices or gain access to corporate networks. Phishing attacks are often paired with social engineering, which hackers use to manipulate victims into giving up sensitive information or login credentials to privileged accounts.

Insider Threats

One of the biggest data security threats to any organization is its own employees. Insider threats are individuals who intentionally or inadvertently put their own organization’s data at risk. They come in three types:

1. Compromised insider: The employee does not realize their account or credentials have been compromised. An attacker can perform malicious activity posing as the user.
2. Malicious insider: The employee actively attempts to steal data from their organization or cause harm for their own personal gain.
3. Nonmalicious insider: The employee causes harm accidentally, through negligent behavior, by not following security policies or procedures, or being unaware of them.

Malware

Malicious software is typically spread through email- and web-based attacks. Attackers use malware to infect computers and corporate networks by exploiting vulnerabilities in their software, such as web browsers or web applications. Malware can lead to serious data security events like data theft, extortion, and network damage.

Ransomware

Ransomware attacks pose a serious data security risk for organizations of all sizes. It is a form of malware that aims to infect devices and encrypt the data on them. The attackers then demand a ransom fee from their victim with the promise of returning or restoring the data upon payment. Some ransomware formats spread rapidly and infect entire networks, which can even take down backup data servers.

Cloud Data Storage

Organizations are increasingly moving data to the cloud and going cloud-first to enable easier collaboration and sharing. But moving data to the cloud can make controlling and protecting it against data loss more difficult. The cloud is critical to remote working processes, where users access information using personal devices and on less secure networks. This makes it easier to accidentally or maliciously share data with unauthorized parties.

Critical Solutions

The landscape of data security is constantly evolving, but certain solutions remain essential for protecting sensitive information

Fundamental Solutions

• Data Discovery and Classification: Identifying and categorizing sensitive data is the first step to protecting it.
• Firewalls: These act as a barrier between a secure and untrusted network, preventing unauthorized access.
• Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS): Monitor networks for suspicious activity and block attacks.
• Anti-Virus/Anti-Phishing: Protects systems from malware and phishing attacks.
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Collects, analyzes, and correlates log data to identify security threats.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Identifies, monitors, and protects sensitive data from unauthorized access and exfiltration.
• Encryption: Converts data into an unreadable format, protecting it during transmission and storage.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Requires multiple forms of verification to access systems.

Advanced Solutions

• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Detects and responds to advanced threats on endpoints.
• Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB): Provides security for cloud applications and data.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM): Manages user identities and access privileges.
• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR): Automates security operations and incident response.
• Data Masking: Replaces sensitive data with fake but realistic data for testing and development purposes.
• Tokenization: Replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens for secure storage and transmission.

Considerations for Implementation

• Risk Assessment: Identify potential threats and vulnerabilities to determine the most critical solutions.
• Integration: Ensure seamless integration of security solutions with existing systems.
• Employee Training: Educate employees about data security best practices and their role in protecting information.
• Regular Updates: Keep security solutions and software up-to-date with the latest patches.
• Incident Response Plan: Develop a plan to respond to data breaches effectively.

Regulations

General Data Protection Regulations

The GDPR legislation is a piece of law that protects the personal data of European citizens. It aims to increase people’s control and privacy rights over their data and places strict controls on how organizations process that information. GDPR ensures that organizations process personal data securely and protect it from unauthorized processing, accidental loss, damage, and destruction. It also carries a fine of 4% of a company’s annual turnover or €20 million, whichever is highest.

California Consumer Privacy Act

The CCPA aims to give consumers more control over how businesses collect their personal data. This includes the right to know what information a business has and how it is shared or used, the right to delete that information, the right to opt out of that data being sold to third parties, and the right to avoid discrimination for exercising these CCPA rights. Organizations must provide consumers with notice of their privacy practices.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

HIPAA is a federal law that protects patients’ health data from being exposed without their consent or knowledge. HIPAA contains a privacy rule, which addresses the disclosure and use of patient information and ensures that data is properly protected. It also has a security rule, which protects all individually identifiable health information that an organization creates, maintains, receives, or transmits electronically. 

Compliance failure can result in fines of up to $50,000 per offense, a maximum annual fine of $1.5 million, and a potential prison term of up to 10 years.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Sarbanes-Oxley is a federal law that provides auditing and financial regulations for public organizations. The regulation protects employees, shareholders, and the public from making accounting errors and committing fraudulent financial activity. The primary aim of the regulation is to regulate auditing, financial reporting, and other business activity at publicly traded organizations. Its guidelines also apply to other enterprises, private organizations, and nonprofit firms.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

The PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) ensures organizations securely process, store, and transmit credit card data. It was launched by the likes of American Express, Mastercard, and Visa to control and manage PCI security standards and enhance account security during online transactions. PCI DSS  is administered and managed by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). Failure to comply can result in monthly fines of up to $100,000 and the suspension of card acceptance.

International Standards Organization

ISO 27001 is an international standard for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and improving information security management systems. It provides organizations with practical insight on how to develop comprehensive security policies and minimize their risks.

conclusion

Data security is paramount in today’s digital age. It encompasses a multifaceted approach to protecting information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. While technical measures like encryption, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems are crucial, human elements such as employee training and awareness are equally important.

The distinction between data security and data privacy is essential. While data security focuses on protecting data integrity, confidentiality, and availability, data privacy centers on individuals’ rights to control their personal information.

By implementing a comprehensive data security strategy that includes a combination of technical, physical, and administrative controls, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and protect their valuable assets.

Continuous evaluation and adaptation are key to staying ahead of evolving threats. Emerging technologies offer innovative solutions, but their effectiveness depends on proper implementation and integration with existing security infrastructure.

In conclusion, data security is an ongoing journey that requires a holistic approach, involving technology, people, and processes. By prioritizing data protection, organizations can build trust with customers, partners, and employees, while safeguarding their reputation and financial stability.

Business challenges Of Data Security

s profoundly altering how businesses operate and compete today. Enterprises are creating, manipulating and storing an ever-increasing amount of data, driving a greater need for data governance. Computing environments have also become more complex, routinely spanning the public cloud, the enterprise data center and numerous edge devices such as Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, robots and remote servers. This complexity increases the risk of cyberattacks, making it harder to monitor and secure these systems.

At the same time, consumer awareness of the importance of data privacy is on the rise. Public demand for data protection initiatives has led to the enactment of multiple new privacy regulations, including Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). These rules join longstanding data security laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), protecting electronic health records, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), protecting public company shareholders from accounting errors and financial fraud. Maximum fines in the millions of dollars magnify the need for data compliance; every enterprise has a strong financial incentive to ensure it maintains compliance.

The business value of data has never been greater than it is today. The loss of trade secrets or intellectual property (IP) can impact future innovations and profitability, so trustworthiness is increasingly important to consumers.

Data security capabilities and tools

Data security is the practice of protecting digital information from unauthorized access, corruption or theft throughout its entire lifecycle.

This concept encompasses the entire spectrum of information security. It includes the physical security of hardware and storage devices, along with administrative and access controls. It also covers the logical security of software applications and organizational policies and procedures.

When properly implemented, robust data security strategies protect an organization’s information assets against cybercriminal activities. They also guard against insider threats and human error, which remain among the leading causes of data breaches today.

Data security involves deploying tools and technologies that enhance the organization’s visibility into the location of its critical data and its usage. Ideally, these tools should be able to apply protections such as encryption, data masking and redaction of sensitive files, and should automate reporting to streamline audits and adhering to regulatory requirements.

Business challenges Of Cyber Security

Digital transformation is profoundly altering how businesses operate and compete today. Enterprises are creating, manipulating and storing an ever-increasing amount of data, driving a greater need for data governance. Computing environments have also become more complex, routinely spanning the public cloud, the enterprise data center and numerous edge devices such as Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, robots and remote servers. This complexity increases the risk of cyberattacks, making it harder to monitor and secure these systems.

At the same time, consumer awareness of the importance of data privacy is on the rise. Public demand for data protection initiatives has led to the enactment of multiple new privacy regulations, including Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). These rules join longstanding data security laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), protecting electronic health records, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), protecting public company shareholders from accounting errors and financial fraud. Maximum fines in the millions of dollars magnify the need for data compliance; every enterprise has a strong financial incentive to ensure it maintains compliance.

The business value of data has never been greater than it is today. The loss of trade secrets or intellectual property (IP) can impact future innovations and profitability, so trustworthiness is increasingly important to consumers.Read more on data security ReportIBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index

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Types of data security

To enable the confidentiality, integrity and availability of sensitive information, organizations can implement the following data security measures:

1. Encryption
2. Data erasure
3. Data masking
4. Data resiliency

Encryption

By using an algorithm to transform normal text characters into an unreadable format, encryption keys scramble data so that only authorized users can read it. File and database encryption software serve as a final line of defense for sensitive volumes by obscuring their contents through encryption or tokenization. Most encryption tools also include security key management capabilities.

Data erasure

Data erasure uses software to completely overwrite data on any storage device, making it more secure than standard data wiping. It verifies that the data is unrecoverable.

Data masking

By masking data, organizations can allow teams to develop applications or train people that use real data. It masks personally identifiable information (PII) where necessary so that development can occur in environments that are compliant.

Data resiliency

Resiliency depends on how well an organization endures or recovers from any type of failure—from hardware problems to power shortages and other events that affect data availability. Speed of recovery is critical to minimize impact.Data security capabilities and tools

Data security tools and technologies should address the growing challenges inherent in securing today’s complex, distributed, hybrid or multicloud computing environments. These include understanding the storage locations of data, tracking who has access to it, and blocking high-risk activities and potentially dangerous file movements.

Comprehensive data protection tools that enable enterprises to adopt a centralized approach to monitoring and policy enforcement can simplify the task. These tools include:

1. Data discovery and classification tools
2. Data and file activity monitoring
3. Vulnerability assessment and risk analysis tools
4. Automated compliance reporting

Data discovery and classification tools

Data discovery and classification tools actively locate sensitive information within structured and unstructured data repositories, including databases, data warehouses, big data platforms and cloud environments. This software automates the identification of sensitive information and the assessment and remediation of vulnerabilities.

Data and file activity monitoring

File activity monitoring tools analyze data usage patterns, enabling security teams to see who is accessing data, spot anomalies, and identify risks. Security teams can also implement dynamic blocking and alerting for abnormal activity patterns.

Vulnerability assessment and risk analysis tools

These tools ease the process of detecting and mitigating vulnerabilities such as out-of-date software, misconfigurations or weak passwords, and can also identify data sources at greatest risk of exposure.

Automated compliance reporting

Comprehensive data protection solutions with automated reporting capabilities can provide a centralized repository for enterprise-wide compliance audit trails.

Data security posture management (DSPM)

Protecting sensitive information doesn’t stop with discovery and classification. DSPM tools go steps further to discover shadow data, uncover vulnerabilties, prioritize risks and reduce exposure. Continous monitoring provides real-time dashboards that help teams focus on remediation and prevention.Data security strategies

A comprehensive data security strategy incorporates people, processes and technologies. Establishing appropriate controls and policies is as much a question of organizational culture as it is of deploying the right tool set. This means making information security a priority across all areas of the enterprise.

Consider the following facets in your data security strategy:

1. Physical security of servers and user devices
2. Access management and controls
3. Application security and patching
4. Backups
5. Employee education
6. Network and endpoint security monitoring and controls

Physical security of servers and user devices

You might store your data on premises, in a corporate data center or in the public cloud. Regardless, you need to secure your facilities against intruders and have adequate fire suppression measures and climate controls in place. A cloud provider assumes responsibility for these protective measures on your behalf.

Access management and controls

Follow the principle of “least-privilege access” throughout your entire IT environment. This means granting database, network and administrative account access to as few people as possible, and only to individuals who absolutely need it to get their jobs done.

Application security and patching

Update all software to the latest version as soon as possible after patches or the release of new versions.

Backups

Maintaining usable, thoroughly tested backup copies of all critical data is a core component of any robust data security strategy. In addition, all backups should be subject to the same physical and logical security controls that govern access to the primary databases and core system.

Employee education

Transform your employees into “human firewalls”. Teaching them the importance of good security practices and password hygiene and training them to recognize social engineering attacks can be vital in safeguarding your data.

Network and endpoint security monitoring and controls

Implementing a comprehensive suite of threat management, detection and response tools in both your on-premises and cloud environments can lower risks and reduce the chance of a breach.Data security trends

In the changing landscape of data security, new developments such as AI, multicloud security and quantum computing are influencing protection strategies, aiming to improve defense against threats.

AI

AI amplifies the ability of a data security system because it can process large amounts of data. Cognitive computing, a subset of AI, runs the same tasks as other AI systems but it does so by simulating human thought processes. In data security, this simulation allows for rapid decision-making in times of critical need.

Multicloud security

The definition of data security has expanded as cloud capabilities grow. Now, organizations need more complex tools as they seek protection for not only data, but also applications and proprietary business processes that run across public and private cloud.

Quantum

A revolutionary technology, quantum promises to upend many traditional technologies exponentially. Encryption algorithms will become much more faceted, increasingly complex and much more secure.How data security interacts with other security facets

Achieving enterprise-grade data security

The key to applying an effective data security strategy is adopting a risk-based approach to protecting data across the entire enterprise. Early in the strategy development process, taking business goals and regulatory requirements into account, stakeholders should identify one or two data sources containing the most sensitive information, and begin there.

After establishing clear and tight policies to protect these limited sources, they can then extend these best practices across the rest of the enterprise’s digital assets in a prioritized fashion. Implemented automated data monitoring and protection capabilities can make best practices far more readily scalable.

Data security and the cloud

Securing cloud-based infrastructure needs a different approach than the traditional model of defending the network’s perimeter. It demands comprehensive cloud data discovery and classification tools, and ongoing activity monitoring and risk management. Cloud monitoring tools can sit between a cloud provider’s database-as-a-service (DBaaS) software and monitor data in transit or redirect traffic to your existing security platform. This enables the uniform application of policies, regardless of the data’s location.

Data security and BYOD

The use of personal computers, tablets and mobile devices in enterprise computing environments is on the rise despite security leaders’ well-founded concerns about the risks of this practice. One way of improving bring-your-own-device (BYOD) security is by requiring employees who use personal devices to install security software to access corporate networks, thus enhancing centralized control over and visibility into data access and movement.

Another strategy is to build an enterprise-wide, security-first mindset by teaching employees the value of data security. This strategy includes encouraging employees to use strong passwords, activate multifactor authentication, update software regularly, back up devices and use data encryption.Related solutions

Data security solutions

Protect data across multiple environments, meet privacy regulations and simplify operational complexity.

Data security services

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Homomorphic encryption

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