There are plenty of places in business where cutting corners can add significant savings to your bottom line: executive perks, travel budgets and even marketing expenses are prime targets. However, there is one place where you do not want to skimp, and that is on data protection services. Your organization’s information is one of the most critical assets that you have, and data security is top-of-mind for business leaders, legislators and the American public.
This is especially true for organizations that are heavily regulated such as finance and healthcare — where cybercriminals stand to make a significant portion of their annual income on the theft of private information. The costs to organizations are greater than simply the pain and direct costs associated with healing a breach. Instead, they can balloon into the millions when you consider the full range of system upgrades, staff time, consultants, notification costs and even the lost consumer confidence that comes with an extensive data loss.
The Risky Business of Data Management
With GDPR data protection regulations in full effect throughout Europe, organizations who do business in that space are often still scrambling to ensure that they are fully compliant. There are complex reporting and approval capture rules that are required before organizations can be considered fully compliant. However, not even these detailed guidelines are able to protect an organization fully from the risks associated with data management. Several states in the U.S., most recently California, are adapting their own versions of data protection requirements, adding to the complexity of implementation. Taking shortcuts on protecting your data while ensuring that you still offer a high-availability environment for your internal and external users is a delicate balancing act that adds cost to your IT infrastructure.
Costs of Lost Data
Bringing your organization back online after being infiltrated can be a challenging (and expensive!) situation. Whether you’re dealing with regulatory requirements or communicating the status of the breach to customers, there are thousands of details that must be considered in the event of a data loss. Plus, everything must be completed in a compressed timeline as you’re attempting to return to normal business operations. That often means the addition of external consulting teams to reduce downtime and increase the agility of your recovery efforts. The average costs of lost data is $141 per record, according to the 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study by Ponemon.
Smooth Business Operations Require Ready Access to Data
The more complex and interconnected your business systems are, the more critical it is to have quick access to the right data in the correct format. Smartphones, mobile apps, websites, point-of-sale computers, IoT sensors, Bluetooth connections and customer service representatives are all data points that must have near-instant updates to data across all platforms. That requires an intensely sophisticated system with real-time controls for security. The demand for data will only continue to expand as our systems become ever more sophisticated and dependent upon the information they can access.
Your business data requirements can range from simple to highly complex, but one of the most important points is the security that surrounds your data and business operations. Let the professionals at Coretelligent work with you to define best-practices for data protection based on your unique needs and the regulatory requirements that surround your business. Contact us today at 855-841-5888 to learn more about our white-glove services, including CoreArmor — the intelligent cybersecurity solution created to protect your information assets.
