This Data Privacy Day, Let’s Reassess Our Skills for Enhanced Security

Reevaluating our data security choices and interpreting their growing significance is a must this data privacy day

Data privacy might seem like a juggling act in multinational organizations when it comes to fulfilling the needs of the enterprise and complying with industrial laws. But since our society has turned out to be more technologically driven, and rapidly becoming more technology-dependent, it has become absolutely necessary for enterprises and business leaders to understand the importance of data privacy. This data privacy day, let us re-learn and replenish our skills and knowledge about the significance of data privacy in these modern times.

Experts believe that it's not about human errors, sensitive data can be at risk due to system failures and other technological issues. "Software bots have sharing issues too. It's not just humans that are susceptible to clicking on the wrong link or are perhaps a little too cavalier about what they share about themselves. Software bots have sharing issues too, and on this data privacy day we highlight how we can better protect the data that they access from being exposed," shared Sumit Srivastava, the Solutions Engineering Manager of India at CyberArk on this data privacy day.

Sumit mentioned that the privacy problem arises when we start thinking about what these bots need so they can do what they do.  Healthcare organizations need to access sensitive medical data to provide accurate treatments. So, they need to process customer data stored on a public cloud server or a web portal.

"We've seen the problems that can arise when humans get compromised and the same can happen to bots and at scale. If bots are configured and coded badly, so they can access more data than they need to, the output might be leaking that data to places where it shouldn't be," Sumit added. Likewise, there are incidents of insider attacks and humans being compromised to get to sensitive data virtually every day. Machines have the exact same security issues; if they can access sensitive data and they are not being secured properly, that's an open door for attackers, and putting individuals' privacy at risk.

He also highlighted the importance of data privacy in this emerging hybrid work era. "One of the many ways that life has changed for several of us in the last couple of years is the hybrid work phenomenon. Oh, and we're causing data privacy issues for our employers and their customers," he said.

According to him, the roots of this are buried in the sudden change of environment that many companies had to provide for. Covid spurred many privacy issues. Many workers were given a budget and told to avail themselves of a laptop. These will not have the same level of security as one that the company provides, or as the office workstation. The hybrid work model has changed the privacy game as well. It means that companies have to re-evaluate how data privacy is enforced in 2022. Also, securing access to sensitive data to remote employees will also be a big challenge in 2022.

The changing circumstances have forced us to re-evaluate our choices, which has led to increased data leaks and thefts.

"As a result of the phenomenal pace at which the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation, almost every industry is in the midst of re-engineering its products and processes in order to ensure a "digital-first" experience," presumed data privacy expert Rina Shainski, Chairwoman and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies.

Discussing her insights on the challenges and opportunities that the data economy will face in 2022, she asserted that while this transformative trend stands to benefit the end-user, thanks to higher levels of efficiency, convenience, and personalization, there is a looming threat to personal privacy involved, especially as digitization often relies on increased data sharing. To mitigate this, industries must combine the "digital-first" processes with "privacy-first" capabilities – in order to offer a personalized and safe user experience to customers while complying with growing privacy regulations. With data misuse by hackers, fraudsters and other bad actors on the rise, baking privacy into digital services from the get-go is the best way to ensure that 2021's digital transformation doesn't turn into 2022's privacy and trust crisis.

Data privacy is now an ever-changing domain that requires the maximum attention from business leaders and managers. Even though the times are changing, the significance of protecting data still remains the same.