Advancements and changes means facing new challenges, and that is becoming increasingly difficult to manage in today?s business scenario. Digitization of nearly everything means that the people-centric approach used in years gone by is no longer effective for protecting data and minimizing the risks that comes with data management.
Traditional employee training won?t work, not with everyone being on social media, being able to bring their own (increasingly powerful) devices at work, and having access to electronic communications. Compliance groups and legal groups must find effective ways to face and address the challenges posed by regulatory compliance requirements, network security and information security, and having massive data stores at present time.
When Traditional Strategies Fail
Basic technology such as keyword searches and electronic alerts may not be enough anymore, even when paired with policy trainings and having intradepartmental committees for data privacy. Older technologies are not really sufficient anymore for risk management, more so that they are often inefficient in handling unstructured data like emails. Take for example scanning emails for keywords such as ?bribe? or ?donation?. Fraudsters would know not to use those terms to prevent themselves from getting flagged by the (old) security system, hence making the system obsolete.
Driving Factors for Finding New Data Risk Management Tools
The need for more intensive ways to investigate data risks in organizations is driven by 3 recent data trends discussed below:
Escalations in Data Volumes
The more data you have and the more locations you use to store data, the higher the risks involved; but this is totally unavoidable in a world that?s hyper-focused on information.
Unstructured forms of data such as emails and social media leave your employees (and you) exposed to risks, with malicious individuals only having to send malware or virus laden emails to attack your corporate network. All it takes is one click and your confidential corporate trade secrets can be divulged to the entire world.
Using third-party and low-cost data storage such as the cloud is a huge data security risk. How so? You may not know this but cloud providers are just as susceptible as your corporate network is to being hacked. You also have to check the cloud provider?s service-level agreement because some may transfer your data to other providers. There?s really a lot to be wary of, including international data protection laws. The point is, the more you understand how data handling is done these days, the better you can protect your data.
Threats to Data Security and Privacy
At present time, current data privacy and security regulations are at an all-time high, making traditional risk management solutions virtually obsolete. It is no wonder that nations have adopted restrictive information schemes to protect their citizens? personal data. Take for instance the Data Protection Drive by the European Union which controls how and when organizations collect, transmit, alter, process, restore, and retrieve their citizens? personal data. Nearly every country or region of the world has their own version of this and all is geared to protect against threats to data privacy and security.
Heightened Regulatory Analysis
As covered in the previous two factors, it is evident that more and more safeguards are being implemented for data protection, making being on top of all these changes a priority for any organization that deals with any form of data handling. You?ll have to brush up on your local data protocols, and possibly even international ones just to ensure that you?ve got your bases covered.
Want to know the best approaches to handle the current data security risks your organization may be vulnerable to? Contact us and we?ll see what we can help you with. Initial consultation for our services is free!
