A Practical Approach to Data Security Management

Data security is the top priority for data professionals in 2024.

Here’s why: Enterprises are creating, manipulating, and storing an ever-increasing amount of data spanning remote servers, public data clouds, and the enterprise data center, driving a greater need for data governance.

This complexity increases the risk of cyberattacks, making it harder to monitor and secure these systems. And cyberattacks aren’t just bad for the business – they erode customer trust and can lead to massive penalties if businesses are found to be non-compliant with new privacy regulations. 

Maintaining data security isn’t just a checkbox exercise – it’s vital for any business that wants to protect its assets and build trust with customers.

Understanding the primary data security threats

The most significant threats to data security stem from cyberattacks, insider threats, and human errors.

Cyberattacks

Cyberattacks are malicious attempts by hackers to gain unauthorized access to an organization's data. These attacks can take many forms, such as malware, phishing, and ransomware.

Network intrusion was the most common type of cybercrime attack experienced by companies in 2023, accounting for 51% of incidents. Business email compromise (BEC) ranked second, representing 26% of data security incidents in U.S. companies. Plus, 11% of companies reported having encountered inadvertent disclosure.

But ransomware attacks, in particular, have become increasingly prevalent and costly for businesses worldwide.

According to a Statista survey (January-February 2022), 46% of organizations worldwide paid a ransom to retrieve their encrypted data after experiencing a ransomware attack. 

While affected companies can use backups to regain access to their data, data breaches still come with a cost. The numbers vary across industries, but between March 2022 and March 2023, the global average data breach cost was $4.45 million.

Insider threats

​​Insider threats involve employees or contractors misusing their access to sensitive data. Insider threats are often more damaging because insiders are trusted and have more access. Fueled by factors like remote work and increased cloud migration, these threats have surged by 44% over recent years.

The financial impact of insider-related incidents is substantial, with data breaches costing around $4.90 million. The complexities of the modern work environment, including decentralized data and varied access levels, exacerbate the risks and challenges of monitoring and controlling insider actions.

Insider threats can take various forms:

1. Malicious threats, where insiders intentionally misuse their access for personal gain or harm to the organization

2. Negligent threats, where insiders inadvertently cause breaches due to carelessness or lack of knowledge

3. Compromised threats, where insiders' credentials are hijacked by external attackers

Human error

Human error remains the primary culprit behind data breaches, accounting for 55% of incidents, according to the 2023 Thales Global Security Study of nearly 3,000 companies.

The consequences of human error extend beyond data loss – regulatory fines, productivity losses, lawsuits, negative impact on brand reputation, and potential ransoms to cyber attackers. 

Here are a couple of examples of how such mistakes have impacted data security:

• MGM Resorts social engineering attack: Cyber attackers exploited human vulnerabilities at MGM Resorts, using social engineering to deceive an MGM tech employee identified via LinkedIn. This breach took only 10 minutes to execute and resulted in significant operational disruptions, including delays in guest check-ins and disabled electronic payments and digital services for four days.

• SAP data center breach: A more direct example of human error occurred at an SAP data center in Germany, where four SSD disks containing sensitive data went missing. One of these disks later appeared on eBay, containing the personal records of over 100 SAP employees. 

How to manage data security

To effectively manage data security, organizations must adopt a holistic approach.

This includes identifying potential risks, categorizing data based on sensitivity, controlling access, encrypting data, securing networks and endpoints, planning for incidents, complying with regulations, training employees, and continuously improving security measures.

Conduct a risk assessment and analysis

Conduct regular risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential threats to data security. Once you identify these risks, prioritize them based on their likelihood to occur and their potential impact. 

For instance, a healthcare provider may find through risk assessment that its patient data systems are highly susceptible to ransomware attacks. By prioritizing this risk, they can focus on implementing advanced malware protection and regular data backups to mitigate this specific threat.

Classify data

Effective data management starts by categorizing data based on its sensitivity and importance to operations.

• Identify data types: Recognize different data types like personal data, financial records, and intellectual property.

• Assess sensitivity and criticality: Determine how sensitive each data type is and its importance to the organization's operations.

• Develop handling guidelines: Create guidelines for how each type of data should be handled and stored, including robust data security measures like data encryption and access controls.

Implement access controls

Implement role-based access control (RBAC) to manage who can access what resources within an organization.

By defining roles based on job functions, RBAC helps in controlling access to sensitive data efficiently. This method ensures that employees only have access to the information necessary to perform their jobs, reducing the risk of accidental or malicious data breaches. 

In practice, roles are defined to include specific permissions, and users are assigned to these roles, streamlining the management and scalability of access controls as the organization grows.

Using an "infrastructure as code" approach can further enhance the implementation by automating the setup and maintenance of access controls, ensuring consistency and reducing the likelihood of errors.

Encrypt data at rest and in transit

Encrypt data both when it's stored (at rest) and as it's being transmitted (in transit). 

Effective encryption practices involve using strong algorithms and secure key management systems.

For data at rest, encryption ensures that stored data, such as in databases or file storage, is unreadable without the proper decryption keys. For data in transit, encryption protects data as it moves across networks, preventing unauthorized access during transmission. 

Strengthen network security

Implement firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS), and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) to fortify the network against unauthorized access and threats. 

Segmenting the network can further help contain potential breaches and limit the spread of threats. Continuous monitoring of network traffic allows for the detection of suspicious activities and anomalies, enabling timely responses to potential cybersecurity incidents. 

Protect endpoint devices 

Endpoint security safeguards all devices connected to the network, including computers, laptops, smartphones, and IoT devices. 

Implementing robust antivirus software, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, and mobile device management (MDM) tools helps prevent malware infections, detect suspicious activities, and manage device configurations to maintain security standards across all endpoints.

Develop an incident response and management plan

To effectively manage security incidents, develop and refine a detailed incident response plan. This plan should specify roles, responsibilities, and step-by-step procedures to address potential security breaches. 

Conduct regular drills and exercises to ensure all team members are proficient in their roles and the plan's execution. After each drill, evaluate performance to identify and rectify any deficiencies. Also, integrate automated tools to aid in rapid detection and consistent response, enhancing overall readiness and reducing response times.

Ensure compliance with regulations

Ensure compliance with data protection regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to avoid legal and financial penalties and build trust with customers and stakeholders by demonstrating a commitment to data security.

Segment, for instance, has updated its practices to be GDPR compliant, enhancing privacy and security measures to protect EU residents' data.

But regulations often evolve, and understanding these changes can help organizations adjust their compliance strategies and practices effectively.

You also need to incorporate compliance into the operational workflow to avoid treating data protection as an afterthought. Platforms like Segment offer features that help manage and automate compliance tasks, such as data deletion and retention policies, which are critical under regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Provide security awareness training

Ongoing education and awareness programs can ensure that employees are equipped with the knowledge needed to protect sensitive information and respond appropriately to security threats.

• Develop comprehensive training programs that cover data security best practices, including how to handle sensitive data securely and the importance of following organizational policies. 

• Educate employees about common threats such as phishing, social engineering, and malware. Use real-world examples and scenarios to illustrate how these threats appear and the tactics used by cybercriminals. 

• Encourage employees to be vigilant and proactive in identifying suspicious activities. Establish clear procedures for reporting any suspicious behavior or potential security breaches. 

Review and improve security protocols

Conduct regular reviews of existing security protocols and systems to ensure they effectively mitigate identified security risks and comply with updated regulations.

Establish a feedback loop with IT and security teams to continuously gather insights from security incidents and monitoring reports. Use this information to update training programs, refine risk assessments, and improve incident response plans.

How Segment helps manage data security

Twilio Segment's Protocols and the Privacy Portal help organizations classify data based on sensitivity, automate data quality processes, and simplify compliance with data privacy regulations, ultimately enhancing their overall data security posture.

Check out: Data Privacy vs. Data Security: Differences & Best Practices 

Classify data with Protocols

Twilio Segment's Protocols helps organizations take control of their data quality with intuitive data cleaning features and real-time validation.

Businesses can create a shared data dictionary that aligns all teams around a single source of truth, replacing outdated spreadsheets with a living, breathing Tracking Plan.

Key benefits include:

• Extensible documentation: Protocols provides analysts and marketers with the documentation they need to confidently use your data, ensuring that everyone in the organization has a clear understanding of data definitions and usage.

• Powerful integrations: By leveraging an extensible API, we help you reduce implementation errors, streamlining the process of maintaining data consistency across various systems and tools.

• Automated QA process: Manually testing tracking code is time-consuming and error-prone. Protocols offers automatic Data Validation, helping you audit your implementation in minutes, quickly identifying and resolving data quality issues.

• Confident decision-making: In-app reporting and daily email digests allow teams to take swift action on invalid events, ensuring that decisions are based on clean, reliable data.

Colin Furlong, Business Intelligence Analyst at Typeform, reported a 75% reduction in duplicate or extraneous tracked events after standardizing their data with Protocols.

Automate your data privacy with the Privacy Portal

By automating the process of keeping customers' data private, the Privacy Portal helps businesses comply with regulations and build trust with their customers.

Explore: Why first-party data is the key to data privacy 

Key features include:

• Customer data discovery: The Privacy Portal automatically detects and classifies personally identifiable information (PII) in real time, creating a dynamic customer data inventory for your Segment data. 

• Privacy controls: You can easily set rules to proactively enforce your company's data privacy policies. This feature allows you to automatically block restricted personal data from being collected, ensuring you stay compliant with internal policies and external regulations.

• Subject rights management: Whether your customers want you to delete, modify, or stop collecting their data entirely, Segment's Privacy Portal simplifies the process of honoring these requests.

See how Trustpilot scales platform trust with Segment.