What is Enterprise Data Security?

As global data stores accelerate at an unprecedented rate, so does the need to secure what’s most vulnerable – data. The global datasphere stands at 149 zettabytes, with projections reaching 181 zettabytes by 2025. According to the International Data Corporation, the volume of data stored globally is doubling approximately every four years.

With an increasing number of data being generated daily and cyberattacks at an all-time high, ensuring enterprise data security is no longer a choice but a crucial business requirement.

What is Enterprise Data Security?

Enterprise data security refers to a combination of business practices, frameworks, tools, and corporate policies designed to secure an organization's data, whether it is stored on-premises, in a hybrid environment, or across multiple clouds. It aims to enhance cyber resilience by controlling and monitoring data assets as they traverse networks and systems.

It involves employing a wide range of practices, including data encryption, identity and access management (IAM), role-based access control (RBAC), multi-factor authentication (MFA), network security, intrusion detection systems, and conducting security awareness training, among other industry-wide data security practices.

Why is Enterprise Data Security Important?

Fundamentally, enterprise data security ensures that only authorized users access an organization's data assets, and throughout the data life cycle, the accuracy, integrity, authenticity, completeness, and consistency of the data are maintained. Furthermore, enterprise data security is important because:

A. Regulatory Compliance

Regulations regularly evolve to incorporate new amendments and changes. Regulations such as the EU's GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, LGPD, and PIPEDA demand that companies implement robust data security protocols to protect sensitive personal data or face hefty noncompliance penalties, up to 20 million euros or 4 % of an organization's total global turnover of the prior fiscal year, whichever is higher.

B. Lack of Data Visibility

Inadequate visibility into the data increases the likelihood of data exposure, as businesses are unable to secure it properly without knowing where the data resides and how it flows. 40% to 90% of data is predicted to be dark, making it difficult for businesses to analyze what data is most likely to be inadvertently sent to the cloud during the transition from legacy systems. An enterprise-wide data security framework ensures that data assets are accounted for and provides clear visibility into where data is stored, its residency, who has access to it, and whether cross-border transfers are made.

C. Redundant, Obsolete & Trivial (ROT) Data

An organization’s most valuable asset is data. However, over-collection and retention of redundant, outdated, and trivial (ROT) data can expose an organization to significant security risks, including data loss, disclosure of sensitive data, and unauthorized access. According to studies, organizations incur up to $34 million in costs for ROT data that could have been securely deleted. Maintaining ROT data poses a regulatory risk in addition to a security risk, one that might lead to hefty noncompliance penalties and reputational damage. With data spread across multiple environments, including on-premise, SaaS, and cloud resources, tracking ROT data and implementing retention policies and related controls is crucial.

D. Protecting Enterprise Reputation

Cyber threats, data breaches and data exposure are crippling an organization’s reputation. A single data breach can significantly damage a brand's reputation and erode customer trust. Consequently, enterprise data security beefs up an organization’s data security posture against evolving risks.

E. Maintain Business Continuity

Recent studies have shown that the average cost has reached $9,000 per minute. Downtime may sometimes exceed $5 million per hour for higher-risk organizations, such as finance and healthcare, and this doesn't account for any potential fines or penalties. Implementing enterprise data security practices is crucial to ensuring that business operations continue smoothly, even in the face of cyber threats.

Key Components of Enterprise Data Security

Key components of enterprise data security include:

A. Data Discovery and Classification

Enterprise data security begins with gaining visibility into data types and access details. Security teams must leverage an automated AI-powered tool that provides intelligence across cloud-native and shadow data assets. The tool should also be capable of identifying various formats, including both structured and unstructured data. From there, the data should be properly categorized using an efficient classification process. The classification engine should utilize various classification methods to enhance accuracy, including Named Entity Recognition (NER), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and out-of-the-box classifiers. Data can then be classified into four categories: public, private, confidential, and sensitive, depending on the organization's specific needs.

B. Employing Security Protocols

Organizations must utilize a range of industry-standard, top-notch security protocols to enhance their cybersecurity posture. These include access control and identity management to restrict data movement to specific individuals. Additionally, security training must be made a core requirement when engaging with data assets, and a dedicated recovery plan must be in place to minimize damage.

C. Implementing Least-Privileged Access

Only authorized users must be able to access data or information pertaining to intellectual property (IP) that is subject to restrictions. Security teams must have comprehensive knowledge of sensitive data access across their data environment, including who has access to it and how they access it. Additionally, they must continuously monitor for unusual access patterns or inactive users to identify which individuals from various departments require access.

D. Conducting Continuous Risk Assessment

Organizations must regularly assess data security and compliance posture through automated risk assessments. These assessments provide organizations with comprehensive visibility into security gaps and risks across their security and compliance posture, enabling them to address the gaps before they result in losses. Risks can be assigned different scores or ratings, enabling teams to prioritize remediation based on their understanding of the risk's sensitivity. To prevent or mitigate the impact of events, companies can effectively allocate resources and execute remedial measures in a timely manner by focusing on the most significant vulnerabilities.

E. Mapping Data Flows

A critical component of enterprise data security is mapping data flows, which provides a comprehensive visualization of data flow, both internally and externally, within an organization. This enables a detailed assessment of data evolution, empowering security teams to identify vulnerabilities and direct security efforts where necessary.

F. Breach Management

A robust data security posture requires investing considerable effort in breach management as part of incident response to quickly identify, contain, and recover from data breach incidents to minimize their impact. In the third quarter of 2024 alone, 422.61 million data records were leaked in data breaches, affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Organizations must monitor breach incidents, invest in tools that automatically detect impacted users, automate incident response, and send automated notifications to both impacted users and relevant regulatory bodies, all while limiting the collection, storage, and disclosure of sensitive data. Sensitive data minimization is core to reducing the entire attack surface and enhancing cyber resilience against evolving threats.

G. Compliance with Evolving Data + AI Laws

Data and AI laws are always evolving. Organizations must ensure their data collection, processing, storage, and sharing practices comply with evolving regulatory requirements to protect user trust and reduce exposure to costly noncompliance fines or reputational damage. Proactive compliance enhances data governance, positioning the organization as a reliable entity that leverages AI safely in a highly volatile and hyperscale digital environment.

Secure Your Enterprise Data

Securiti Data Command Center simplifies enterprise data security across all environments, including on-premise data stores, SaaS applications, and cloud environments. The platform replaces the piecemeal approach to data security by unifying all key capabilities under one window, including, but not limited to, data discovery and classification, data lineage, access governance and control, security posture management, compliance management, data minimization, and AI security and governance.

Request a demo to learn more about how Securiti can help you streamline enterprise data security.

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