The Importance of Proper Governance of Access to Critical Data

Security of the most sensitive data is vital. Without proper governance, there may be business disruptions and revenue loss. Conversely, effective governance maximizes revenues, customer satisfaction and efficiency in operations.

To develop appropriate controls, it is important to know your most important data. This requires intimate knowledge of your records and information and the regulations that cover it, and what impact a breach would have on you.

It’s not simple to identify critical data elements, but it’s worth the effort. It helps your company set goals and tasks more accurately, resulting in higher quality products, greater revenue and lower risks. It also allows you to streamline processes, thereby freeing up resources.

Critical data is defined as those that, if lost compromised, or destroyed would result in a moderate to substantial short-term impact on your ability to provide essential services and functions. It should be secured by security measures that are proportionate to the risks and are detailed in your policy.

If you’re trying determine whether your data is crucial, consider you could check here the three components of any access control system: who, what and how. What is the reference to the asset itself like the power plant, computer system, or database. Who are the users that are seeking access. It could be people or computers, and their level of risk. What is the degree of security necessary based on policies and principles such as separation of privileges and the lowest privilege.

A business should also think about how much time it is willing to invest in analyzing and managing crucial information. For instance, if a business doesn’t maintain records that are long enough to be considered essential, it could save time and money if you delete the records promptly. However it is important to do this in a controlled manner to ensure that the records that are still needed are reclassified to a lower tier.

In addition to identifying and categorizing important data, you should create a process of cleaning and reorganizing your data and records. This includes erasing any data that is no longer required or valuable and ensuring all remaining data is erased in a timely manner. This will help ensure that your business only keeps data that is essential to its operations and avoids storing data that could pose a risk of exploitation.

Businesses must continuously evaluate their security and data protection practices as the cybersecurity landscape changes. By implementing a centralized and simple-to-use system for managing data companies can reduce risk, increase efficiency, and improve satisfaction with their customers. Download this white paper for more details on how to manage your data efficiently.