Pervasive Intelligence Now

CHAPTER 7 The Data Security Awakening

If your company is like most others, you face a dilemma. To maximize information value and use that information to make data intelligence pervasive throughout your organization, you must make that data available to employees, business partners, and customers. However, without limiting how many times—and with who—information is viewed, copied, transmitted, and analyzed, appropriately controlling access to data is difficult.

As a result, your proprietary data is often scattered throughout the organization, and among affiliate entities, which increases the chance that some or all of it will wind up in the wrong hands. The only way you can avoid this problem is to implement in-depth defensive strategies to protect your most valuable, sensitive data.

DATA SECURITY: A QUESTION OF MANAGING RISK

Implementing effective data security is predicated on understanding how an organization can effectively solve the problem of providing appropriate access while limiting unauthorized access. You can begin the process asking five simple questions:

1. What are the information assets you possess that require protection?
2. Where do these assets reside within your enterprise ecosystems?
3. Which security and privacy controls are needed to protect these assets?
4. Who has access to these assets, and is that access necessary for them to do their job?
5. Is logging and monitoring done to help detect and prevent unauthorized access to these assets?

If your organization honestly ...