Thinking about your data as a dangerous substance can help you secure it

When thinking about data security, a useful analogy is that data is in many respects like a dangerous substance. So many of the principles of handling potentially dangerous substances translate well for how to manage data. For example, with a dangerous substance you:

• Store it safely
• Don’t store more than you need
• Only share what you need to
• Have controls in place to manage access to it
• Move it safely
• Only give it to those that need to use it and will handle it safely
• Dispose of it safely

Swap ‘safely’ for ‘securely’ and each of those points apply to data and how to store, handle and dispose of it securely.

Dangerous substances are complicated to manufacture, which makes them costly; and as a physical thing they have a finite amount.

Data however is different in this respect: data is easy to generate and cheap to copy. Instead, the costs are in deciding and managing what data to collect, what to keep, how long to keep it for, what data to share. ?The costs are in implementing the policies, processes and controls for data management. This difference between a dangerous substance and data means that it can be appealing to businesses to simplify data management decisions: to store and share more data than is needed.

Thinking about your data as a dangerous substance helps you to secure your data appropriately.

#DataManagement #DataSecurity