The security of data that is the most sensitive is vital. Without proper governance, business disruption and revenue loss can occur. Effective governance increases revenues, customer satisfaction and operational cost-efficiency.
To develop appropriate controls, it is essential to understand your critical data. This requires an understanding of your records and information including the regulations that apply to them and what impact the breach could have on you.
It’s difficult to pinpoint important data elements, but it is worth the effort. It allows your organization to better align goals and tasks precisely, leading to better quality products, greater revenue and lower risks. It also lets you reduce the number of tasks that need to be completed, which can free up resources.
Data that is essential to your business may be defined as data that should be risk management tool lost or compromised it could be a moderately negative impact on the ability to perform crucial tasks and services. It is essential to protect it with security controls that are compatible with the risk and are stipulated in your policy.
If you’re trying determine whether your data is valuable take a look at the three elements that comprise any access control system: who, what, how. What is referring to the asset itself, such as the power plant, computer system, or database. Who is the group of users who are requesting access. It could be people or computers and their level of risk. How refers to the level of access that is required, based on your security policies and guidelines like least privilege and separation of privilege.
The business should also take into consideration how much time it’s willing to dedicate to assessing and managing critical information. If your company doesn’t keep records for a long enough period of time to be considered critical it is possible to save time and money by deleting them as soon as possible. However it should be done in a controlled manner to ensure that the records that are still needed are reclassified to a lower tier.
In addition to identifying, separating and storing critical data, you must create a process of clearing and updating your information and records. This includes deleting data that is no longer required or valuable, and making sure that any remaining data is deleted promptly. This will ensure that your organization only retains the data that is essential to its operation and avoids storing information that could be a source of being exploited.
As the security landscape continues to change and evolve, it’s essential for businesses to constantly evaluate their most critical data and security measures. By implementing a central easy-to-use system to manage data, organizations can minimize risk, increase efficiency, and increase customer satisfaction. For more details about how to efficiently manage your data download this white paper.