Data Leaks For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Calculating the Value of Your Data

In This Chapter

• Modeling the value of your data

• Adopting different perspectives for different industries

• Identifying sensitive information

• Watching out for zippering

• Getting a handle on the total cost of data loss

Before developing a strategy to prevent data loss, you need to know the value of the data you hold. Its value to you — expressed in monetary terms — is also related to its value to a data thief. Chapter 2 shows how to examine your data environment, find the different types of data you hold, and figure out where you'll find it. Chapter 4 offers some preliminary steps in the direction of evaluating your data and rethinking data security. This chapter takes all this information one step farther: putting a realistic, quantitative, monetary value on your data assets. The goal is to help you put together a cost-effective solution to protect those assets.

There are many solutions and their costs vary widely. Matching the solution to the value of your data is important; you want to avoid both underspending and overspending.

Modeling Information

The value of your data to your organization is something that only the people who create and/or use the data can decide accurately.

One increasingly popular way to view it is the "CIA" model (illustrated in Figure 5-1):

• Confidentiality (C): How private must the data be kept?

• Integrity (I): How important is it that the data and the systems have not been tampered with?

• Availability (A): How available must ...