Organizations that adapt quickly and develop a strong DataSecOps approach with clearly communicated processes can accelerate their data-driven innovation.
With data driving today's innovation, enterprise leaders are turning to data democratization (the process of making data widely available to employees across an Organization) as they optimize data analytics to accelerate their success. However, security leaders are struggling to reconcile the growing need for data accessibility with the rising tide of data breaches and malicious attacks dominating today's cybersecurity landscape.
The elevation of data has quickly turned it into a veritable and valuable enterprise asset that requires special protection. It is a lucrative target for bad actors who stand to make small fortunes selling the proprietary market intelligence and PII housed in enterprise data stores.
Tech leaders looking to secure their data are taking inspiration from other security practices, such as "shifting left" -- i.e., implementing security earlier in development or at the source of a data asset, to succeed. As a result, a growing number of enterprises are embedding data security into the foundations of data governance and use, believing that if data must be widely distributed across an enterprise, security administration and ownership must be distributed across data users and stakeholders as well.
It is time to redefine security stakeholders where data governance is concerned, and take inspiration from DevSecOps -- the process by which security is introduced and built into DevOps, or the development life cycle -- to integrate security into the foundations of data governance and use. The idea of distributed security is a core tenet of DevSecOps, which establishes cybersecurity as a shared responsibility with developers. As the rise of data produces unending branches of data users, from formal DataOps teams to intrepid marketing interns, security leaders must consider how to integrate security in a similar manner across these channels. Enter DataSecOps.
DataSecOps is an agile, holistic, and security-embedded approach to coordinating the ever-changing data ecosystem for both applications and users working with data. It embraces the foundational and distributed security tenets of DevSecOps while looking to secure data for democratization. In other words, DataSecOps' objective is to support delivery of quick data-to-value practices while keeping data private, safe, and well governed.
How do you secure future data-driven innovation and adopt DataSecOps policies? Here are the key characteristics of a DevSecOps mindset that you can apply to data security initiatives.
The open lines of communication established in DataSecOps are meant to, above all else, uphold a clear data access policy and highlight its consistent application across all data users. This is in stark contrast to the often ad hoc decision-making process currently dominating enterprise data access. A disorganized approach muddles visibility into access and introduces critical security gaps. To avoid ambiguity, disseminate a clear policy that directly states who can access what types of data and at what sensitivity or anonymization level.
