Why should your organization adopt data classification

The importance of security varies from organization to organization. If you run a bank, you would place a high importance on security as opposed to say, someone running a local flower shop. However, no matter what kind of company you run, you have certain data that you would want to protect. You need to classify data so that it can be protected properly. Thus, many companies today are opting for data classification consulting. The first step in protecting your data is classifying it into what’s utterly important and what is not. Luckily, in this day and age, you’re not alone, there are many data protection services available which will not only help to classify data but will put the necessary security protocols on them. Be it email classification or PDF classification, these services can help your organization stay afloat.

As mentioned before, the first step to data security is data classification. Data classification is a process which is used to identify the value of data and the cost if its theft or loss. When you are classifying data, it is important to ask yourself about

• The importance it holds to your organization,
• The importance it holds to your competitors and outsiders,
• The people who can have access to your data,
• And the people who can’t have access to your data.

Many organizations can today classify data so that they can easily maintain and implement permissions. For example, if the data is internal only, you can create a group for employees and can assign the permission for that group to access the data. Based on the configurations you set, no one besides your employee can have access to that data. Data classification thus can lead to simpler permission management. And you can employ these permissions at various levels like internal, public, sensitive etc.

By understanding the basic of data classification, you can see why my organizations place great importance to it. Each organization runs a risk of certain threats like worms, denial or service, etc. You do not know what the true intention of the attacker until you see the consequence of theft yourself. Because the approach of attacker is so random in nature, it important that you do everything in your power to protect your organization and the data it holds.

Source : http://dataclassification.beep.com/why-should-your-organization-adopt-data-classification-2017-01-18.htm

What does data loss prevention mean and why you should adopt it

Today, data security is of high importance whether it is for an individual or an organization. There is so much data and information stored online and offline like credit card details, house loans, business contracts, ownership papers, it is important to keep it safe from falling in the wrong hands. This threat is mostly faced by large organizations and companies who have millions of worth of amount to lose and a business is at stake. For this very reason, information security companies are on the rise. Such companies build software and other data classification toolkit which helps not only in maintaining your data but also securing it. Such software not only protects your data but ensures complete data leakage prevention.

Many corporations are now adopting what is called a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) strategy which puts a check on the information used by an end user. Corporations today are adopting this because of the large volume of sensitive information they hold and the disclosure of which can put the company at stake. With a complete control over the data being stored, this strategy ensures complete data protection.

The rise of such software is due to insider threats that a company faces. If someone tries to pass any data outside the corporate network, with DLP software installed, they will be denied the permission to do so. Such software also protects the data being transferred and filters the data streams. This complete check over the data is done by understanding the company rules and through data classification in order to see which data is highly sensitive and which is not. This can ensure that an organization runs smoothly without any theft or loss or leakage of data.

With so many companies going down because an employee went berserk, it is important that you take necessary steps to protect the information in hand. You took years building a brilliant organization and you certainly don’t want it taken down by “lack of security measures”.

So, go invest in data security tools and run your organization threat free!

Source : http://dataclassificat.livejournal.com/3095.html

Different Ways in Which You Can Protect Your Data

Data protection has become highly important, not only for large organizations but also for individuals. There is so much of confidential data stored online and offline like credit card statements, contracts, deals, pricing information that you do not want any unauthorized access to that data. The laws for data protection in India ensure that there is no authorized access and attackers who steal or manipulate your data are prosecuted. The first step in protecting your data comes in the form of data classification, eg. Microsoft Excel classification to classify and protect your data such as pricing details, customer details etc. You can even purchase toolkit for Microsoft Outlook Classification to protect your emails and any online data saved on your account. Such toolkits not only help in classifying data to make their search better and faster but also ensure data leakage prevention by putting a restriction on the end-user access.

Another way in which you can protect your data is by backing it up early and often. This is usually to protect your data from loss. You can use numerous third-party backup programs which offer more sophisticated options. Whatever program you use, it is important that you keep the backup offsite in case of any physical damage. You can even use file-level and share-level security. If you have data on shared network, you can set permissions to control who can and cannot access the data. One of the easiest ways to protect data is by setting passwords. There are many productivity applications like Microsoft office applications or Adobe Acrobat which allow you to set passwords on individual documents. You can even set the type of encryption which can be used. Another way is through disk encryption. You can find many third-party products which will allow you to encrypt an entire disk. Whole disk encryption will lock down all the data in the disk and will only be transparent to the user.

So, these are few of the many ways in which you can protect your data. As mentioned before, it is important to protect your data so that it doesn’t fall in wrong hands. Ensure data security before it’s too late. Prevention is always better than cure!

Source : http://dataclassification.page.tl/Different-Ways-in-Which-You-Can-Protect-Your-Data.htm

Understanding the Basics Of Data Classification Tools And The Aspects It Covers

Today, the amount of data held by an organization is so vast and voluminous that it is completely irrational for a human to sort through it. It can take days, even weeks to classify the different types data and then another horror to find these classified data mixed in with other folders. Today, automated tools play an important role in data classification process whether it’s is to find that important presentation through Microsoft Power Point classification or any important file containing information of your orders. Data classification tools have made it easy to discover, search or transfer a part or whole of data. These tools cover four major aspects to some extent – discovery, classification, search, migration. Furthermore, they not only cover the data you have saved offline but also the online data. There are many email classification tool which can help you sort your bundle of emails and fine them at moment’s notice.

However, it is first important to understand about data classification tools first. As mentioned, they over four areas. Discovery process identifies the files and data types which you have in your infrastructure. Basically, it tells you what you have. Classification works on the already discovered data and applies metadata to each file and their type based on defined set of rules. This metadata is then stored in database which can then be searched later and used as reference. These rules can be developed within the organization or can be imported from a third-party source. What’s more is that once implemented, these rules can be tweaked and changed later according to the need of the organization. Since data classification is usually coupled to tiered storage strategy, data migration features can help in moving data around from one location to another. However, it is important to bear in mind that not all these tools have search and migration features. Today, analysts have noticed that these tools are becoming more robust and thorough and can make contextual decisions about the data. The trick for this is to feed the tool with enough information so that it can draw inferences from the data it is examining.

Surely, the world has come a lot ahead than the times we used maintain physical copies of information and it is progressing a lot more.