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Enterprise Security Magazine | Wednesday, September 20, 2023
By embracing innovative technologies while prioritizing data protection, businesses can remain agile, competitive, and resilient against evolving cyber threats.
FREMONT, CA: IT and information security teams face numerous and sometimes conflicting requirements in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. These demands include cost reduction, efficient data utilization, automation, cloud migration, and the critical task of evaluating and managing information security risks.
The first trend that demands attention is the rising cost of groceries, which significantly impacts both individuals and businesses. As inflation and geopolitical changes persist, businesses are compelled to tighten their budgets, leading to a major review of operating costs for IT teams. One area under scrutiny is cloud expenses, given that an estimated 60 percent of companies' data is now stored in the cloud. However, many organizations have migrated to the cloud impromptu and unsystematic, resulting in underutilized Software as a Service (SaaS) subscriptions and suboptimal configurations of cloud environments. Businesses must create a culture where IT professionals and users are conscious of cloud expenses. A systematic approach to cloud cost management is essential for long-term efficiency.
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Cloud services are reconfigured during cloud optimization and consolidation, and data may be moved between different cloud environments. Businesses must allocate time and resources for a post-migration system audit to ensure security during and after migration. This audit should verify the correctness of security settings and ensure that service accounts used during migration are closed appropriately. Additionally, updating confidential data such as access tokens and API keys and implementing best-practice password and encryption policies are essential for bolstering security.
Another crucial trend in IT is the increasing popularity of open-source applications. While open-source software offers economic benefits, it also introduces the risk of vulnerabilities and backdoors in third-party code. Businesses must conduct thorough code inventory and scanning to identify and mitigate potential security issues. Implementing strong security measures for open-source applications is vital to protect critical systems and sensitive data.
Data has become a strategic asset for businesses across various industries. However, accumulating vast amounts of operational data can pose challenges in organizing, managing, and utilizing it effectively. Businesses need clear procedures for collecting, cataloging, storing, and utilizing data to leverage the full potential of data-driven growth. Data management and governance strategies are crucial in achieving these objectives. These strategies define the structure and nature of stored information, manage the full data lifecycle, enable businesses to assess risks, provide adequate protection for data pools, and comply with data protection laws.
Data governance is particularly significant as it allows businesses to understand and protect sensitive data, making it less susceptible to cyber threats. IT and informational security teams should actively participate in developing and implementing data management strategies, including access and encryption policies, compliance controls, data protection measures at rest and in transit, and access procedures. Addressing auxiliary data types, such as backups and proprietary technical information stored in the cloud, is also essential for comprehensive data governance.
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