Importance of Data Discovery
Who fancies going on a journey of discovery with us?
Don’t worry I’ve not been drinking de-icer again, nor am I about to get all deep and meaningful, what I’m referring to is Data Discovery, which could be both deep and meaningful for your organisation.
Data Discovery, Data Lineage, Data Governance and other such practices are closely related and there’s a whole heap of benefits for your business should your team start trying to perform any single one of them.
If we want to wrap protection, perform governance, achieve compliance or manage our Data Security Posture (check out our recent webinar on DSPM if you’re into that sort of thing) then we have to know what we’re working with, what type of data have, and where is it.
Any organisation looking to wrap security around its data must know where to deploy the security tactic, it needs to understand its risk, its exposure, attack surface and where the potential hazards may lie. This was super-duper easy to do years ago when we had a castle & moat approach built into our networks, “everything is on the computers in the room with the big noisy fan and the baddies are on the outside”. (Simpler times ey?).
Today’s world of rapid cloud adoption, DevOps, Zero perimeter madness puts data everywhere and almost anywhere imaginable. Consider when you applied for your job, did the advert give away the real situation you’d be faced with? Something along the lines of responsibility for implementing data security and compliance legislation across thousands of often unknown sometimes insecure locations which change daily, some of which fall outside of the organisation’s administration. You wouldn’t bother, would you? Trying to patch up the holes in a leaky vessel whilst new ones of differing sizes burst open constantly, but you’re blindfolded and have ear defenders on.
Everything the industry and regulators are telling us to do as good practice is nigh on impossible without the true levels of visibility that a discovery tool or process will give us. What your organisation chooses to do with the information after it has it is up to you.
Organisations large and small need to be diligent in defining their processes regarding data privacy to ensure they abide by the regulatory obligations that apply to their business, as well as customers’ expectations of security.
To discuss this the best Data Discovery solution for your organisation or an upcoming project, contact one of HANDD’s specialists on +44 (0) 845 643 4063 or email us at info@handd.co.uk.
Written by Sam Malkin,
Lead Solutions Architect at HANDD Business Solutions
