December 13, 2021

10 Steps to Automating Your Sensitive Data Management

Data discovery and data classification work symbiotically when creating and implementing reliable data security policies. The two functions are the backbone of any well-informed data governance program.

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Mark Rowan

10 Steps to automating your sensitive data management

Data discovery and data classification work symbiotically when creating and implementing reliable data security policies. The two functions are the backbone of any well-informed data governance program.

The issue with these competing tasks, is their complexity, and a requirement for quality insights, at scale. Quality and quantity cannot be achieved simultaneously and in a timely manner, when carried out using legacy tools or manual processes.

The automation of data discovery, classification, remediation, and monitoring has become critical practice for all medium-large sized organizations that need to have confidence in their compliance and consumer privacy protection.

STEP ONE - Full system audit and discovery

Our process starts with your systems. All of them. We analyze your data that's the cloud, on-prem, structured, unstructured, SaaS systems, partner systems and legacy environments. The goal of an audit is to know your data’s entire footprint. Our scanners take a deep dive into your data, carried out through automated protocols and machine learning based algorithms.  

This deep discovery audit will uncover all your data. Using the information discovered from the audit, we start to solve the problems you didn’t even know you had.

STEP TWO - Inventory, classify and tag sensitive data

Once we know all your 1s and 0s, we need to classify them in a way that we can both understand. Inventorying, tagging, and classifying is the next step in achieving trusted sensitive data management.

The act of inventorying creates a cohesive data dictionary. This results in a 1 stop shop for our program to know the who what where when and why of all your data elements.

Classifying then begins to categorize your data elements. This would be akin to organizing the dictionary by nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Common classifications include PII, PCI, PHI, and CDEs.

STEP THREE - Identify financial risk

Data risk is scary. But how scary? Checkout our breach risk calculator to estimate your overall risk, but what if you could analyze each individual element’s risk value, in dollars? Data Sentinel provides financial risk in monetary value, natively and automated.  

With these individualized financial risk ratings, we can combine our expertise with yours, to identify the most vulnerable data sets and begin to design specific privacy and governance policies for your company and its subsidiaries.

STEP FOUR - Classify Critical Data Elements (CDEs)

Critical Data Elements. As you might have guessed, they are integral to your business’s function and growth. These are the mission critical data elements that need to be both protected and easily accessible. Achieving the ideal combination of security and accessibility is a fine line to walk and confidently implement. We’ve mastered balance of managing CDEs.  

STEP FIVE - ROT analysis

A Redundant, Outdated, and Trivial analysis has the goal of streamlining your data footprint and improving your risk profile, while streamlining the system’s efficiency.  

Deleting data can be scary, but with automated double and triple checks, you can feel confident that any purged data is either backed up, duplicated, documented, or useless.

We compare all assets against each other and identify duplicates, redundancies, outdated and trivial data sets. These datasets take up space but can also have a negative effect on your business. Duplicates can skew results, models, and estimates, slowing your business growth, and confusing your team with un-usable information, sometimes prompting them to do tasks twice.

STEP SIX - Remediate for compliance and risk mitigation

As laws and regulations are continuously amended, it can be easy to lose track of their requirements. To always know you’re compliant, Data Sentinel has your back to alert you of needed adjustments and incoming issues. Sensitive data is the lifeblood of many businesses’ operations, we make it easy for you to access it, while trusting it’s safe and secure.

Minimize risk by classifying your vulnerabilities and protecting them proactively. All sensitive data is can be de-identified and encrypted so that in the event of a breach, your customers are still safe from unauthorized access of their data.  

STEP SEVEN - Active data governance 

Actively monitoring your systems is crucial for continued confidence in your privacy policies and security protocols. Sensitive data management is an ongoing priority and if done manually, incredibly expensive. Automation offers the benefit of taking your hands off the wheel, allowing you to input directions, and letting the program handle the rest.

Once a full system audit has been completed, active monitoring and governance is enabled. It’s a continuous, always-on system that never takes a day off or gets sick.

STEP EIGHT - Report on quality and data metrics

Data quality is a complicated. It’s often measured through only qualitative analysis. But with machine learning based software, paired with industry experience and expertise, Data Sentinel can give your data a tangible, measurable value of quality. Instead of “it’s pretty high quality”, measure your data quality through quantifiable metrics and demonstrate improvement over time.

STEP NINE - Monitor all potential threats and risks

Today’s cybersecurity industry can be fragmented and complicated. With dozens or hundreds potential attack types, you need to be sure you’re defended against any attacks, while also protecting yourself from risk if a breach does occur.

Mask, de-identify, and encrypt all sensitive information, transforming it from lucrative ransom worthy information to useless (encrypted) information for any hackers without your private key codes.

STEP TEN - Persist and repeat 

Data Sentinel is ongoing and always on. We’re working hard to keep your company compliant to all current and future regulations. As new attack methods are discovered, we remediate accordingly and keep you up to date. We help keep your company safe and compliant. Alleviate data related stress with the help of Data Sentinel.

Sensitive data management takes a lot of steps and is a complicated process. Handling the task internally at a price competitive with a dedicated provider has proven to be near impossible. Laws and policy makers continue to construct regulations in the best interests of consumers. Act now to get ahead of the competition. Find value in your data you never knew was there. Solve problems you didn’t know you ever had. Trust your data.

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December 13, 2021

10 Steps to Automating Your Sensitive Data Management

Data discovery and data classification work symbiotically when creating and implementing reliable data security policies. The two functions are the backbone of any well-informed data governance program.

Date:
Hosted By:
Register Now

10 Steps to automating your sensitive data management

Data discovery and data classification work symbiotically when creating and implementing reliable data security policies. The two functions are the backbone of any well-informed data governance program.

The issue with these competing tasks, is their complexity, and a requirement for quality insights, at scale. Quality and quantity cannot be achieved simultaneously and in a timely manner, when carried out using legacy tools or manual processes.

The automation of data discovery, classification, remediation, and monitoring has become critical practice for all medium-large sized organizations that need to have confidence in their compliance and consumer privacy protection.

STEP ONE - Full system audit and discovery

Our process starts with your systems. All of them. We analyze your data that's the cloud, on-prem, structured, unstructured, SaaS systems, partner systems and legacy environments. The goal of an audit is to know your data’s entire footprint. Our scanners take a deep dive into your data, carried out through automated protocols and machine learning based algorithms.  

This deep discovery audit will uncover all your data. Using the information discovered from the audit, we start to solve the problems you didn’t even know you had.

STEP TWO - Inventory, classify and tag sensitive data

Once we know all your 1s and 0s, we need to classify them in a way that we can both understand. Inventorying, tagging, and classifying is the next step in achieving trusted sensitive data management.

The act of inventorying creates a cohesive data dictionary. This results in a 1 stop shop for our program to know the who what where when and why of all your data elements.

Classifying then begins to categorize your data elements. This would be akin to organizing the dictionary by nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Common classifications include PII, PCI, PHI, and CDEs.

STEP THREE - Identify financial risk

Data risk is scary. But how scary? Checkout our breach risk calculator to estimate your overall risk, but what if you could analyze each individual element’s risk value, in dollars? Data Sentinel provides financial risk in monetary value, natively and automated.  

With these individualized financial risk ratings, we can combine our expertise with yours, to identify the most vulnerable data sets and begin to design specific privacy and governance policies for your company and its subsidiaries.

STEP FOUR - Classify Critical Data Elements (CDEs)

Critical Data Elements. As you might have guessed, they are integral to your business’s function and growth. These are the mission critical data elements that need to be both protected and easily accessible. Achieving the ideal combination of security and accessibility is a fine line to walk and confidently implement. We’ve mastered balance of managing CDEs.  

STEP FIVE - ROT analysis

A Redundant, Outdated, and Trivial analysis has the goal of streamlining your data footprint and improving your risk profile, while streamlining the system’s efficiency.  

Deleting data can be scary, but with automated double and triple checks, you can feel confident that any purged data is either backed up, duplicated, documented, or useless.

We compare all assets against each other and identify duplicates, redundancies, outdated and trivial data sets. These datasets take up space but can also have a negative effect on your business. Duplicates can skew results, models, and estimates, slowing your business growth, and confusing your team with un-usable information, sometimes prompting them to do tasks twice.

STEP SIX - Remediate for compliance and risk mitigation

As laws and regulations are continuously amended, it can be easy to lose track of their requirements. To always know you’re compliant, Data Sentinel has your back to alert you of needed adjustments and incoming issues. Sensitive data is the lifeblood of many businesses’ operations, we make it easy for you to access it, while trusting it’s safe and secure.

Minimize risk by classifying your vulnerabilities and protecting them proactively. All sensitive data is can be de-identified and encrypted so that in the event of a breach, your customers are still safe from unauthorized access of their data.  

STEP SEVEN - Active data governance 

Actively monitoring your systems is crucial for continued confidence in your privacy policies and security protocols. Sensitive data management is an ongoing priority and if done manually, incredibly expensive. Automation offers the benefit of taking your hands off the wheel, allowing you to input directions, and letting the program handle the rest.

Once a full system audit has been completed, active monitoring and governance is enabled. It’s a continuous, always-on system that never takes a day off or gets sick.

STEP EIGHT - Report on quality and data metrics

Data quality is a complicated. It’s often measured through only qualitative analysis. But with machine learning based software, paired with industry experience and expertise, Data Sentinel can give your data a tangible, measurable value of quality. Instead of “it’s pretty high quality”, measure your data quality through quantifiable metrics and demonstrate improvement over time.

STEP NINE - Monitor all potential threats and risks

Today’s cybersecurity industry can be fragmented and complicated. With dozens or hundreds potential attack types, you need to be sure you’re defended against any attacks, while also protecting yourself from risk if a breach does occur.

Mask, de-identify, and encrypt all sensitive information, transforming it from lucrative ransom worthy information to useless (encrypted) information for any hackers without your private key codes.

STEP TEN - Persist and repeat 

Data Sentinel is ongoing and always on. We’re working hard to keep your company compliant to all current and future regulations. As new attack methods are discovered, we remediate accordingly and keep you up to date. We help keep your company safe and compliant. Alleviate data related stress with the help of Data Sentinel.

Sensitive data management takes a lot of steps and is a complicated process. Handling the task internally at a price competitive with a dedicated provider has proven to be near impossible. Laws and policy makers continue to construct regulations in the best interests of consumers. Act now to get ahead of the competition. Find value in your data you never knew was there. Solve problems you didn’t know you ever had. Trust your data.

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