How do you secure data for business objectives and customer expectations?

1 Understand your data

The first step to secure your data is to understand what data you have, where it is stored, how it is accessed, and what risks it faces. You need to classify your data according to its sensitivity, value, and purpose, and assign appropriate security levels and controls. You also need to map your data flows and dependencies, and identify any potential vulnerabilities or threats. By understanding your data, you can design a data security strategy that aligns with your business goals and customer needs.

3 Apply data security techniques

The third step to secure your data is to apply data security techniques that enhance the protection and privacy of your data. Depending on the types, formats, and platforms of your data, you should choose data security techniques that address the specific challenges and requirements of your data architecture. Common techniques include data masking, which hides or replaces sensitive information with fictitious or anonymized data; data encryption, which transforms data into an unreadable form; data tokenization, which replaces sensitive information with non-sensitive tokens; and data hashing, which generates a fixed-length value from the data using a one-way function. All these techniques can help to reduce the risk of unauthorized exposure or misuse, as well as verify the integrity or identity of the data.

4 Monitor and test data security

The fourth step to secure your data is to monitor and test your data security performance and effectiveness. You need to collect and analyze data security metrics and indicators, such as data breaches, incidents, alerts, audits, compliance, and user feedback. You also need to conduct regular data security assessments and audits, to identify and address any gaps or weaknesses in your data security strategy. Moreover, you need to test your data security resilience and recovery, by simulating different scenarios and incidents, and evaluating your response and recovery plans.

5 Update and improve data security

The fifth step to secure your data is to update and improve your data security practices and capabilities. You need to keep up with the changing data landscape, technologies, regulations, and expectations, and adapt your data security strategy accordingly. You also need to learn from your data security experiences and feedback, and implement continuous improvement processes and methods. Furthermore, you need to leverage new and emerging data security solutions and innovations, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, or cloud computing, to enhance your data security performance and value.

6 Secure data for business objectives and customer expectations

The sixth step to secure your data is to align your data security strategy with your business objectives and customer expectations. You need to ensure that your data security strategy supports and enables your business goals and outcomes, such as increasing revenue, reducing costs, improving efficiency, or enhancing customer satisfaction. You also need to ensure that your data security strategy meets and exceeds your customer expectations and demands, such as complying with privacy laws, ensuring data quality, or providing data transparency. By securing data for business objectives and customer expectations, you can create trust, loyalty, and competitive advantage for your business.