How To Protect Your Data in Highly Distributed Environments

How To Protect Your Data in Highly Distributed Environments

Many businesses choose to keep their sensitive data in the cloud. Others keep their private information on-site or spread it across different environments. When data is held across distributed environments, the attack surface increases since criminals can exploit holes in security or vulnerabilities that haven’t been patched. As a result, costly data breaches are becoming a problem for more and more businesses.

The security concerns of data democratization.

Data democratization, or the practice of storing data in widely dispersed places and making it more widely accessible, provides businesses with various advantages resulting from more informed and better-informed decision-making. However, the risk to data security grows as the number of users increases, and ensuring data integrity becomes more difficult. Since everyone in the organization might not be familiar with data security best practices, there is a higher chance of human error or potential data breaches.

Enterprises are highly likely to lose visibility of their sensitive data due to the difficulty of moving data quickly to the cloud and storing it across several environments. According to the IBM 2023 Cost of a Data Breach report, 39% of the compromised data was kept in distributed environments, making it more expensive and challenging to contain than other breaches. Businesses cannot expect to protect all their data if they are unaware of where it is. Visibility (or lack thereof) further complicates business data security and compliance issues, which can have adverse effects like high penalties, drawn-out legal battles, reputational harm, and more.

3 Steps to Effective Data Protection in Distributed Environments.

When companies store their data in multiple environments, it is imperative that they have a comprehensive data security and compliance strategy in place. Businesses should prioritize the following procedures:

  1. Know where your data is.
  2. Enhance data security across the organization.
  3. Invest in a data security culture.

Know where your data is.

It is difficult to safeguard data when it is spread across multiple locations and is subject to various management regulations. To protect data, businesses must first identify where it is located. A company is in danger if they are unaware of where sensitive data is located and how it is used. Risks include failure to comply with legal standards and regulations, which can result in an excessive retention of sensitive information. Data visibility is the foundation of any planning and concerns both data security and privacy.

Enhance data security across the organization.

Whether an organization operates across multiple locations, uses a cloud-based infrastructure, or relies on remote work, safeguarding sensitive information is paramount. Businesses should consider the following controls to enhance data security:

  • Data Encryption: Implement strong encryption for data in transit, at rest, and in use, including robust key management.
  • Access Control and Identity Management: A well-designed IAM (Identity and Access Management) system is recommended to ensure secure access control. The principle of least privilege should be enforced to restrict access only to necessary resources. In addition, to enhance user authentication, it is advised to utilize MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) as an additional layer of security.
  • Network Security: Segmenting your network to isolate critical data and limit lateral movement is important. Additionally, it is recommended to employ firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and regularly update and patch all network devices and software.
  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Implement DLP solutions to prevent unauthorized sharing of sensitive data by setting policies to flag and block data movement.
  • Backup and Disaster Recovery: Maintaining regular backups of important data and storing them in secure off-site locations is critical. It is also crucial to develop and test a comprehensive disaster recovery plan to mitigate the impact of any unforeseen events. Cloud-based disaster recovery solutions should be considered as they offer scalability and flexibility in disaster management.

Overall, the data security strategy should embrace a zero-trust security approach, assuming no one and nothing is inherently trustworthy and verifying everything.

Invest in a data security culture.   

A data security culture is a set of shared beliefs, values, and practices within an organization that prioritizes protecting sensitive data and information. It means that data security is not just an IT issue; it’s everyone’s responsibility. Building a data security culture involves fostering an environment where every employee understands and actively contributes to the importance of data protection.

By investing in a data security culture and providing regular security training, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches and improve their overall cybersecurity posture. It empowers employees to defend the organization’s sensitive information actively and helps create a security-conscious work environment. Additionally, staying up-to-date with the latest security threats and evolving training programs is essential to effectively address emerging risks.

Any organization that holds data in distributed environments to support its business must establish strong governance to ensure data is secure. As with everything in cybersecurity, data security governance should be based on the foundational pillars of people, technology, and processes. Failing to secure data will result in putting data democratization efforts in jeopardy.