Can Smart Data Ensure Cybersecurity and Data Protection?
We are in the era of big data, and the implications have already reached nearly every sector of the economy. In general, this is a good thing since people are extremely poor decision makers, and data helps us make more efficient decisions more often. However, too much data creates issues for companies and customers. An inability to effectively utilize the information collected by big data, and, more troubling, to protect user privacy and data, are all signs that we need to revise our practices. This can seem inconsequential when sourcing people’s restaurant preferences, but it can be a lot more problematic when dealing with sensitive information, such as financial data.
Smart data is the safer, more effective alternative to big data. Not only does it provide more actionable data for companies, but it helps ensure cybersecurity while protecting customer privacy and data. When smart data is collected, everybody wins.
Cybersecurity is one of the most urgent problems that financial institutions must address because they are now collecting, processing, and storing financial information electronically. Financial institutions are already top targets for cybercriminals, and as the fintech movement pushes digitalization both at the startup and the corporate level, cybersecurity quickly becomes the defining element of the industry. With the average organization facing 106 target cyber-attacks each year, there is the feeling of inevitability that data will be compromised and customers will be affected. Smart data helps ensure cybersecurity because it requires less customer data, which leaves less data vulnerable to inadvertent leaks or malicious theft.
A good example of this is the practice of culling customers’ social media data to make lending and credit decisions. Big data often relies on customers’ personal information from social media to determine credit worthiness. When this data is compromised, customers are at risk. Smart data ensures cybersecurity because it doesn’t require customers’ social media information to generate useable data sets.
