Enterprise Data Protection: Principles and Strategies

What is enterprise data?

Enterprise data describes the data shared by the employees of an organization, e.g. across departments and geographic regions. Protecting it is crucial for enterprises, since data loss can lead to serious financial losses.

What is enterprise data protection?

Data is one of the key elements for effective decision-making and a driving force for organizations, so this data has to be safeguarded accordingly. The process of delivering, managing, and monitoring security across all data points within an organization is referred to as enterprise data protection.

Principles of data protection

There are two guiding principles of data protection: data availability and data management. Here’s a closer look at these fundamental components.

Data availability

Data availability is the process of ensuring data is available to applications and end users like customers, employees, and vendors when and where they need it.

While data availability might seem independent of other facets of data protection, like security and regulation, it goes hand-in-hand.

Hybrid and remote work has forced companies to adjust security protocols to ensure data is available in situations that traditional on-premise security protocols and firewalls didn’t support — like employees using poorly secured home networks. Another example is collaborating with contractors or vendors, which requires data availability on more cloud storage and applications. Of course, increased availability necessitates new and innovative data management approaches.

Data management

Data management is the practice of storing, transmitting, maintaining, and monitoring data. This concept is crucial in developing a data protection strategy as it defines how employees and other stakeholders work with data.

With data becoming more available at the permitters of networks such as remote employee laptops and personal cloud applications, data management has taken on a new role. Security teams must now track data movements on these remote devices and applications and understand trends of this activity to detect and flag risky behavior that necessitates intervention.

Types of data protection technologies

Since data protection pertains to security, availability and management, there are many technologies that aim to help companies accomplish these goals:

• Tape or disc-based backups: This technology consists of physical devices that security teams use to store or “back up” data assets.
• Storage snapshots: In the form of an image or other reference point, storage snapshots reflect data at a specific point in time.
• Continuous data protection (CDP): Also called continuous backup, CDP is a system that backs up data on a computer system every time someone makes a change.
• Firewalls: These devices monitor traffic to or from a network. They allow or block traffic based on a defined set of security rules.
• Encryption: Encryption is the process of securely converting data to and from scrambled text so you can store or transfer it between devices without compromising the raw information.
• Endpoint protection: This data protection technology focuses on monitoring and preventing threats on endpoint devices — items on the edge of a network — like laptops and mobile phones.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM): IAM systems provide a framework for businesses to manage digital identities and user access to different data and systems, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information. This strategy is critical for minimizing the risk of data breaches and maintaining compliance with data protection regulations.
• Data loss prevention (DLP): DLP solutions detect potential data leaks and exfiltration. They require extensive classification of data in order for network administrators to monitor and control what data users transfer. Data goes unmonitored by a DLP if it is not classified by the company.
• Insider Risk Management (IRM): IRM solutions are a risk-based approach to data protection. Unlike conventional DLP methods, IRM solutions monitor all data, not just data a company has already labeled, making it an ideal approach to managing a quickly changing workforce. IRM helps security teams prioritize what data matters most to their unique needs and respond promptly to data risks without impeding employee productivity.

Why is data security important for companies?

Organizations store many types of data – customer data, personnel files, financial transactions, product information, just to name a few. This data is a big part of what a modern enterprise is based on – it is used for decision making, business growth, and much more. A successful cyberattack can result in serious implications, such as financial loss, data loss, reputational damage amongst others, so data security is of great importance and must be a top priority when it comes to enterprise cybersecurity.

How to implement robust data protection strategies

Implementing robust data protection strategies is crucial for organizations to secure sensitive data, ensure compliance with regulations, and safeguard against potential data loss or theft. Here are key strategies that organizations should consider:

• Use encryption and access controls: Encrypting data at rest and in transit provides a strong layer of protection, making it unreadable to unauthorized users. Implementing stringent access controls, based on the principle of least privilege, ensures that only authorized personnel have access to sensitive data. This not only protects against external threats but also minimizes the risk of insider threats.
• Regularly update software and systems: This is crucial for safeguarding against emerging threats. By patching vulnerabilities, organizations can close security gaps that could be exploited by cybercriminals. Employing secure configurations further minimizes the risk of unauthorized access or data breaches. This comprehensive strategy provides robust protection across all organizational levels, ensuring that sensitive data remains secure.
• Evaluate external vs internal data risks: Understanding your external and internal data risks is crucial for improving your organization’s cybersecurity posture. External risks can be addressed by using advanced technology systems for threat detection and response, such as intrusion detection systems (IDS), firewalls, and anti-malware solutions. Internal risks can be trickier to see without complete visibility into data exfiltration’s, but to start, ensure that vendors and partners adhere to stringent data protection standards through contracts and regular audits. By proactively identifying and mitigating both external and internal risks, companies can safeguard against data breaches and protect the business’ most sensitive data (and reputation).
• Educate employees on policies and security awareness: Aligning organizational policies with the evolving landscape of threats and regulations, with a keen focus on the human element, is essential. Employees should be well versed in company data protection policies, identifying security threats, and implementing safe data handling practices at work. Regular, ongoing training can foster a culture that prioritizes security awareness and reduce data breaches stemming from human error.

Enterprise data protection requires strong data leak prevention

Data leaks, whether they're malicious or not, are a serious threat to enterprise data protection. Sensitive information like financials, future business plans, intellectual property and personally identifiable data that is subject to data privacy regulations must all be protected by the highest levels of data security. Since email is one of the most common sources of data leaks, your enterprise data protection solutions must include tools to identify and block potential leaks in outbound email.

For highly effective enterprise data protection, Mimecast provides a cloud-based subscription service with data protection solutions for stopping data leaks and protecting email from a wide variety of sophisticated threats.

Ensure enterprise data protection with Mimecast

Mimecast's all-in-one service for email security, archiving and continuity helps to protect email and keep it safe and available for business use. Built on a highly scalable cloud platform, Mimecast's technology helps to reduce the cost and complexity of managing email and mitigating risk.

Mimecast enterprise data protection solutions include Mimecast Content Control and DLP, a powerful content-filtering tool for maintaining control of information leaving the organization. This enterprise data protection service scans email content and attachments to detect, encrypt or block sending of sensitive information. Using managed dictionaries and fuzzy hash document fingerprinting, Mimecast identifies and blocks email messages that may contain a potential leak.

With Mimecast's data leak prevention solution, you can:

• Detect the presence of sensitive data in email, including customer lists, codenames, and personally identifiable information.
• Convert documents to shareable formats like PDF and ODF, while removing document metadata like comments or tracked changes.
• Add policy-based content to outbound emails such as signatures, legal notices and branding.
• Encrypt email with best-effort and policy-forced TLS usage.

Additional Mimecast solutions for enterprise data protection

In addition to data leak prevention, Mimecast's enterprise data protection includes powerful multipurpose archiving services to replicate email in the cloud and protect it from loss and corruption. Mimecast's archiving tools also provide the enterprise data protection and management tools needed to respond to the EU's General Data Protection Regulation and to ensure GDPR compliance.

Mimecast email security services protect email from a variety of threats. A suite of Targeted Threat Protection services defend email against sophisticated attacks like spear-phishing, ransomware and impersonation fraud, as well as viruses, malware and spam. Mimecast's Secure Messaging service enables users to share sensitive information easily without requiring knowledge of complex access keys or encryption methods. And Mimecast Large File Send provides an easy way to send large attachments – up to 2 GB in size – directly from a user's mailbox, rather than resorting to consumer-grade file sharing services that may compromise corporate security.

Learn more about enterprise data protection with Mimecast, and about how to backup Outlook emails with Mimecast's archiving tools.

FAQs on Enterprise Data Protection

What are the different types of data security?

Some common types of data security include:

• Data Encryption
• Data Erasure
• Data Masking
• Data Backup and Recovery

What are the data security challenges that enterprises face?

Enterprises are faced with many types of challenges when it comes to data security:

• Accidental exposure
• Phishing and other social engineering attacks
• Insider threats
• Ransomware
• Keeping up with the ever-evolving threat landscape
• Keeping up with legal and compliance regulations

What are some data protection best practices for small businesses enterprises?

Best practices for protecting data can vary by organization based on its industry, size, and specific operations, but there are some standard best practices that every organization should follow. Be sure to round out these basic best practices with specific additional and more detailed best practices required for your individual organization.

• Document your cybersecurity policies
• Identify and classify sensitive data
• Implement a risk-based approach to security
• Implement data usage policies
• Monitor access to sensitive data
• Regularly train employees
• Safeguard data physically
• Use endpoint and email security systems
• Use multi-factor authentication

What are some of the features to consider while choosing data protection solutions for enterprises?

As with data protection best practices, the features that organizations should look for in data protection solutions should be specific to their own organization and its operations, but there are some standard and very important features that all organizations should seek out in their data protection solutions. Data protection solutions should easily and consistently detect and protect from:

• Malicious attachments
• Impersonation
• Ransomware
• Spear-phishing and other advanced threats
• Viruses, spam and malware