Privacy Management Begins with Data Discovery

 

 

It is difficult if not impossible for an organization to effectively ensure data security and privacy if the organization does not know its data, including where it lives and how it needs to be protected. Knowing your data means having understanding where all “sensitive” data is located across an enterprise. Once the data is located, it should then be classified according to its level of sensitivity and tagged. With this knowledge, the organization can handle each group of data in ways that ensure only authorized people can gain access, both internally and externally, and that the data is always handled in full compliance with all relevant privacy regulations.

To effectively protect customer, employee, and corporate information the following must be known:

• What data exists across the enterprise
• Where the data resides exactly
• The purpose of the data and its risk to the organization if it is compromised
• The compliance regulations governing the data
• Who is allowed to access and use the data

You could obtain the above information using a manual process. However, using data discovery tools would enable you to obtain the information more efficiently.  A data discovery and classification tool helps in finding out instances of sensitive data, ownership of the data, and the various data regulations being violated by storing this data in unsecured locations.

 Some examples of data discovery and classification tool includes but are not limited to the following:

·       Varonis - Data Classification Engine

https://www.varonis.com/products/data-classification-engine?hsLang=en

·       Spirion - Sensitive Data Platform

https://www.spirion.com/products/sensitive-data-platform/

·       Trustarc - TrustArc Privacy Management Platform

https://trustarc.com/privacy-platform/

·       Netwrix - New Netwrix Auditor Data Discovery & Classification Edition - https://www.netwrix.com/data_discovery_and_classification.html

·       ManageEngine – DataSecurity Plus

https://www.manageengine.com/data-security/data-discovery/data-discovery-tool.html?source=solutions

·       SmallID

https://www.smallid.com/why-smallid/

The above listing of data discovery and classification tools is by no means exhaustive. Feel free to visit the respective websites to get a detailed description of their capabilities.

If you know of other solutions, please feel free to share with me.

Thanks,