A data-centric security model moves your cybersecurity away from protecting the place where your data is stored to focus instead on securing the data itself. With cloud computing, there no longer is a single perimeter within which to secure your sensitive information. By protecting the data itself, you assure that no matter where the data goes, your organization is protected against cyber threats.
Even if you suffer a data breach, data-centric security models help to build cyber resiliency. Cyber resilience is your organization’s ability to continue doing business even in the event of a cyberattack. Risk events can cause massive financial and reputational losses, so continuing your day-to-day operations while addressing a breach in your cybersecurity can help to reduce that harm.
Modern Challenges of Cyber Resiliency
The biggest challenge of building cyber resilience for your organization is getting underway with the task. Allocating resources such as staff, budget, and technology for cyber risk management is often what stops small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from pursuing cyber resilient practices compared to their larger industry competitors.
The digital transformation required to build cyber resilience is a hefty investment, further complicated by the need to translate IT jargon into language that the budget committee can better understand.
Further, some leaders may balk at implementing certain new cybersecurity measures, such as connecting the Internet of Things (IoT) via cloud services or cloud computing, which can open the organization up to temporary, but intense, cyber risks such as phishing.
Additionally, key stakeholders such as the board of directors or C-level executives may not have the cybersecurity awareness and understanding of the threat landscape needed to prioritize building cyber resilience for your organization.
For example, implementing “zero trust” cybersecurity within your organization might come across as blaming or accusing internal staff of leaking secure information. Zero trust really only means that there are both internal and external cyber risk management protocols.
Without full internal support and investment, it’s far more difficult to foster a digital transformation for cyber resilience that allows for agile incident response to cyber threats.
Data-Centric Security Models and Cyber Resiliency
So how does data-centric security help you to build cyber resiliency? It all comes down to agile information security practices. When you secure the data itself rather than where the data is stored, you have a much higher level of control over things like identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and data loss prevention (DLP).
Implementing data protection helps to protect you from common cyber attacks such as malware or ransomware attacks or other cyber incidents. For example, encryption, which is a form of data security where you scramble data until an authorized user accesses it, keeps malware away because it makes it difficult for malware to attach to your data.
By enforcing data-centric security within your organization, you’ll gain the control needed to be active rather than responsive in your cybersecurity risk management.
If you can plan for cyber attacks, internal misuse or mistakes, and data breaches, then you can respond to them swiftly with the cybersecurity protocols you already have in place. This agility helps mitigate risk while reducing the potential financial and reputational harms of a risk event.
For Improved Cyber Resiliency, Rely on ZenGRC
An adaptable, streamlined dashboard can help you build cyber resiliency via constant monitoring and communication tools. ZenGRC from Reciprocity specializes in making cybersecurity tools that make it simple for you to continue building cyber resilience and fend off security breaches for your organization.
The ZenGRC platform and dashboard give you all the continual data you need to maintain efficient cybersecurity over time. Regular monitoring and shareable reports help you adapt to potential threats and efficiently update your cyber risk appetite statements.
