The big data - as everybody knows - is getting bigger every millisecond by as much as tons of gigabytes. This boom in data - including critical or sensitive data - invites malicious actors to destroy or steal it for their personal benefits. That's why it's more important than ever to safeguard it. Don't you agree?

But then, it brings us to the question: how to protect crucial or sensitive data?The answer is data security, the process of safeguarding data against malicious actions like deletion or theft.

Do you wish to know more? Read on.

What is Data Security?

Data security is the process of protecting data assets from unauthorized or unwanted persons. The process involves implementing the right technology (security products) along with deploying the required people and processes to safeguard data throughout its lifecycle in an organization or the systems.

There are three main elements of data security aka the "CIA Triad", which acts as a guide and security model for institutions to protect their data, namely:

  1. Confidentiality - It ensures that the data is protected from unauthorized users, i.e., no one without the access permission can read the data.
  2. Integrity - It ensures that the data is both accurate and reliable at the time of using it, i.e., the data isn't edited or tampered by any means.
  3. Availability - It ensures that the data is available as well as accessible to meet the business requirements, i.e., the required people can read it.

Let's understand data security via an example. You must have written a diary in your lifetime. If not, then you must have seen someone else writing a diary. In childhood, people usually jot down their dreams and daily encounters in a journal, which is super-crucial for the individual - as is one's digital data.

If you've neither written it nor seen anyone writing it, then you must have seen journaling in a movie or television show. For example, "The Vampire Diaries" - one of the most popular supernatural teen drama series - showed journaling by all its protagonists: Elena Gilbert, Stefan Salvatore, and Damon Salvatore.

Since the diary is so important for an individual, he/she must protect it, right? That's why one keeps a diary under his pillow, under the fireplace, behind the wall in a slight opening, or any other secret location. The reason being one can get into trouble if one's friends or parents get to know about one's secrets.

The same principle applies to your digital data. It's crucial to you because of the information it holds or its nature. Maybe it's corporate or private data which shall be hidden and protected under all costs. Or, maybe it's your financial data or medical information that might harm yours or your family's reputation.

In any case, you can't afford to lose it or get it accessed or stolen by anyone - be it your friends, employers, or malicious actors. Of course, the biggest risk is of losing it or having it stolen by cybercriminals, but nonetheless, you must protect your critical or private data. But how to do it? The answer is data security.

Why is Data Security Important?

Data security enables individuals or organizations to safeguard important data. It's more important for institutions than individuals since an organization has more crucial data than an individual. The biggest reason being any organization usually stores its customers' data including their financial or medical data.

That said, if the data of a single person (let's say, you) is crucial, then how much crucial or important is the data of thousands or millions of people? It shall be tremendously important, right? That's why the data in an organization is a lot more important than of an individual, and so is the need for data security.

For example, IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2019 - a security report by IBM - reports that 11 terabytes of data were leaked or stolen between 2016 and 2018. In short, the data leaked or stolen in the last three years equal to around 4300 - 5700 hours of full-HD (1080p) movies you play or stream on Netflix.

It further states that the compromised records included Personal Identifiable Information (PII) such as banking information, passport data, phone numbers, and social security numbers. Also, it included Personal Health Information (PHI), i.e., medical data like laboratory results or medical insurance data.

However, attackers or cybercriminals don't just target the organizations but also individuals since they're easy targets for the malicious actors. An organization is more informed and prepared to fight a cyber attack than a person - especially if the person is not tech-savvy or he hasn't undertaken any relevant studies.

For instance, WannaCry - a ransomware attack broke out in May 2017 - was one of the biggest cyberattacks in recent history. It was a malware known to spread across computers and encrypt users' files to demand monetary benefits in return - in the form of an almost-untraceable cryptocurrency (bitcoins).

In just a few hours, WannaCry had spread to thousands of computers, causing damage of billions of dollars in mere hours, as reported in a post by TechCrunch. It targeted general users as well as organizations including government systems, public sector networks, and private institutions, creating havoc worldwide.

Best Practices for Data Security

Let's check out the best industry-approved practices for data security. Though there are more such practices, the important ones are mentioned below.

Data Encryption

Data encryption is a process of secure-masking information into random data, making it impossible for any person to access the data without the authorization key (a password or a hardware key). Disk encryption is an advanced version of data encryption, in which, the data is encrypted/decrypted on-the-fly.

Data Masking

Data masking is the process of hiding or masking (obscuring) specific data in a structured database to ensure the safety of confidential data. For example, one may mask financial records or passwords in a database having users' data so that those records are secure from unauthorized persons including hackers.

Data Backups

Data backup is the mechanism of storing copies of the same data on multiple storage devices to ensure its safety in the case of loss of any single device. It's the same as people used to maintain two or three copies of a book or journal in old times to ensure the availability of information if one of them is lost.

Data Erasure

Data erasure is a method of erasing sensitive data in a secure way - usually from insecure systems - in order to protect the confidential data. The usual method includes overwriting the confidential data with random bytes (multiple times, sometimes) to secure-delete the data to avoid its recovery anyhow.

That's not all, there is an abundance of data security practices and processes. And it's not easy to keep up-to-date with all of them. That's why you must opt for an industry-recognized solution that provides complete data security.

For instance, Imperva's FlexProtect Plans promise the 360-degree protection by encompassing a multitude of security tools under an umbrella solution. The list of its key features includes Data Discovery and Classification, Data Activity Monitoring, Data Risk Analytics, Data Masking, User Rights Management, etc.

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