Data is considered to be the oil of the digital age, a favorable fuel for business growth. But like oil, data diffusion presents unique challenges. In 2020 alone, the amount of data created he increased to 59ZB. Given the abundance, the question arises:
How can we manage it and keep it safe?
There are reportedly over 60,000 “hacking attempts” every day in the UK alone. That number will only continue to grow as remote work weakens the traditional security perimeter of corporate offices and creates multiple points of entry for hackers to gain access. . But there is another problem plaguing IT teams.
How much data is at risk?
This is because his use of SaaS apps such as Facebook, Zoom and DropBox has spiraled out of control and escaped IT involvement as employees work from home. According to Rewind, organizations will use three to four times as many of his SaaS apps as the average IT department perceives, and by 2022, 90% of organizations will use him to meet their business goals. estimated to depend on SaaS apps. This lack of transparency and who has access to apps and the sensitive data they contain highlight major gaps in an organization’s security posture.
Unstructured data problem
SaaS applications contain vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, but it is the unstructured data that poses the biggest problems for enterprises. Think selfies, videos, audio files, and even email files. The lack of proper identity security policies that can govern employee access to these SaaS apps and the data stored within them poses a significant cybersecurity risk to organizations, with unstructured data becoming a security threat. major factor in increased risk.
To better understand the risks organizations face in relation to SaaS applications and their data at rest, we recently engaged Dimensional Research and We conducted a survey.
This research shows just how complicated it is to keep your data safe and under control. 92% of organizations have already moved their unstructured data to the cloud. However, 76% of organizations face challenges with protecting unstructured data, including unauthorized access, data loss and compliance fines. More than 4 in 10 companies admit they don’t know where all their unstructured data lives. Nearly all organizations surveyed cite a number of challenges, including too much data, lack of a single access solution across multiple repositories, and lack of visibility into access, including data whereabouts and content. , stated that managing access to unstructured data is difficult. It is the owner of the data that is being accessed.
Given this data, the Canalys report reveals that businesses are spending record amounts on cybersecurity to protect the rapid digital transformation we have witnessed over the past year. is not surprising. 50% of European companies say investing in new safety technologies is their top priority when it comes to prevention spending. Despite these efforts and intentions, the number of successful attacks continues to grow more than ever. Canalys reports that “more records have been compromised in just 12 months than in the past 15 years combined.”
connect the dots with access
Looking more closely at this study, we see these findings combined with increased cloud adoption, unstructured data stored in apps and systems in the cloud, and IT’s efforts to secure this vast information network. You can see the connection between departmental attempts. Access is the answer. Our research found that more than a quarter of organizations do not conduct regular user access rights reviews, and a third of organizations report real-time security checks in the event of unauthorized access to unstructured data I found that it doesn’t provide alerts for .
Extending identity security to data access management during the implementation phase raises expectations. The solution provides an automated approach to updating user access levels, logging data location, identifying types of data stored, and alerting organizations to unauthorized access. If your IT department has all the information and insight about your organization’s users and their access (both data and applications), they can make better decisions faster, even in the event of a data breach.
The future is in identity
While many IT leaders I have spoken to understand the challenges of unstructured data security, some view it as part of a holistic approach to identity security. not. Intelligently adapting security practices to predicted trends keeps the situation in control, making your data and the systems that protect it safer and more resilient.
