Where does your sensitive data reside?
Does your security team know who can access it?
How do you address compliance issues?
These questions are valid. But they may be difficult to answer. The complexity of modern data landscape environments introduces multiple challenges for enterprise data security and compliance.
Complexities of data security and compliance in hybrid, multicloud environments
Cloud has become the default platform for many organizations to run their IT applications.
And it’s easy to see why. Faster time to market, agility, and lower IT costs are just some of the benefits of migrating to the cloud. According to one study, most organizations are using more than two public and two private clouds on average.1
While cloud computing allows new levels of flexibility and agility, it also creates a complex security landscape with limited visibility and fragmented controls. For example, organizations share security and compliance responsibilities with their cloud service providers, also known as a shared responsibility model. This arrangement can be challenging for security and compliance teams to have visibility and control of their data landscape across cloud environments. Even if a data vulnerability is found, organizations lack total control over the service provider’s security remediation process.
Your security team should know where your most sensitive data resides and who has access to it, whether the access level is approved, and if it represents any risk to the enterprise. After all, you can’t protect what you can’t see.
Cloud misconfigurations were a leading cause of data breaches in 2020.2
Compliance management
Regulatory compliances and audit requirements are driving the need for data protection. Regulatory laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are shifting mindsets about data privacy—giving consumers more awareness and control over their data. For example, the landmark CCPA gives Californians strong data privacy rights, including the right to know, the right to delete, the right to opt out of sale of personal data and the right to nondiscrimination.3
The failure to comply with any one of these data privacy laws could result in hefty fines, damage to reputation, and even loss of business. For example, companies that don’t follow the GDPR rules could potentially face penalties of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual global revenue.4 Achieving continuous compliance is critical to avoiding potential lawsuits and regulatory investigations regarding data privacy.
APPI Japan
CCPA California
Data Protection Act Ghana
GDPR Europe
PDPB India
PDPA Singapore
PIPEDA Canada
NDPR Nigeria
Regulatory compliances have become a global challenge. Following Europe and the US, more regional, national and international data privacy laws are being launched.
Skills shortage
As cyberthreats continue to rise, organizations face the challenge of hiring security professionals who can keep up with today’s sophisticated security threats and protect their companies’ systems from malicious actors. In fact, Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that by 2021, there’ll be more than 3.5 million open cybersecurity jobs.5
USD 3.5 million
is the estimated job openings in cybersecurity5
Clearly, addressing the security challenges of today’s hybrid, multicloud environment requires more than just an advanced security tool. Your organization needs a combination of expertise, data monitoring services, practices, and tools to securely realize the benefits from your cloud environments. A managed security services provider (MSSP) can manage all those tasks with a single point of contact across services and technologies.
Having an MSSP at the helm can help your organization decrease management time, lower costs, and eliminate hiring and training of staff—freeing up your team’s time to focus on more strategic initiatives.
IBM was ranked a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Global Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs), Q3 2020
IDC analysts rank IBM as a Leader for Worldwide Managed Security Services in 2020.