The amount of sensitive data your business stores is only increasing in size - and one of your major responsibilities is managing it. As more tools are used to manage everyday business, both on-prem and cloud, the amount of data being stored is just getting bigger! While lots of the data you collect may be completely harmless, critical and sensitive information hides among it, often in plain sight.

Anywhere you have data, you certainly also have sensitive data. To manage your sensitive data, you first must discover it. Solutions like GeoLang's Data Discovery tool help you to take the first step in maintaining your increasing amounts of sensitive data. But why is sensitive data protection more important than ever? What are some places your sensitive data could be hiding?

Why should we protect our sensitive data?
There are heavy fines issued in relation to sensitive data being leaked through breaches and it's now vitally important to protect against any unauthorised access. With a heightened focus now on data compliance regulations and the potential massive damage to your reputation, intellectual property, efficiency and bottom line - if you're not locating and classifying your data, your organisation is at risk.

Rise in privacy regulations
It is not just the public that cares how their details and information are being captured and used by businesses, but a massive focus from legislators worldwide. Since 2018 and the creation of Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2020, many businesses have woken up to the need to manage their sensitive data better. With more than 100 countries now having their own data privacy laws, it's a fact that regulations, like your sensitive data, are increasing all the time.

The EU GDPR sets a maximum fine of €20 million (about £18 million) or 4% of annual global turnover - whichever is the greater - for businesses that do not comply with GDPR rules and fines for violating the CCPA can reach $7,500. With the evolution and addition of new privacy laws and regulations, remaining compliant is a constant challenge.

Sensitive data protection allows you to sort out the confusion behind data privacy regulations and effectively deploy your limited resources so you can focus on other critical business needs.

Your brand reputation - it's all you have got!
Your systems, or 'Data Silos', hold extensive data about your employees, customers, and others with whom you do business - in essence, any data that relates to a person (e.g. Names, home addresses, payment card information, driving licence numbers, email addresses and other personal information).

When collecting information from people, you accept the responsibility for protecting their information. Failing to do so results in severe reputation damage, but also a potential loss of business. There are many cases where a business that has suffered a public data leak has then gone on to see a decline in sales figures.

BLOW TO CONFIDENCE
This is due to the trust your customers had in your brand being damaged. The blow to consumer confidence can affect stock prices for months or years.

Time and cost to recover from a data breach
Data and privacy breaches continue to grow with more than 33 billion records projected to be stolen in 2023 - a 175% increase over 2018. According to IBM's latest 'Cost of a Data Breach Report', the global average cost of a cybersecurity breach is £3.41 million and rising. In the US, the average is much higher, $8.19 million. The same report states that the average time a company takes to identify, contain, and recover from a breach is 280 days. Implementing a data protection plan before a data incident (or breach) takes place is vital to a business's ability to survive and thrive. Without a solid data protection plan, you are driving around uninsured, with bald tyres. With no headlights. In the dark. Into oncoming traffic.

Locating sensitive data - the resourcing challenge
While businesses understand the need to control, manage, and reduce their sensitive data footprints, many struggle to keep up. The sheer amount of data, along with its huge ranges of locations - some you may not even know about - can seem like an impossible challenge, especially when a business's resources are already thinly spread. Many SMBs do not have an IT resource and outsource that role.

Sensitive data can be anywhere across structured, unstructured, and cloud locations and many companies only point resources at protecting the cloud, while giving less attention to endpoints (Laptops, Desktops, File servers). In fact, employee machines, servers, and even printers could store sensitive information. Covid-19 and the new home working culture has only increased the risks as employees work remotely. Some data privacy management software is designed to find, classify, and protect sensitive information only in certain kinds of locations. However, just like any defence, your data security plan is only as strong as its weakest link.

Search everywhere. Find everything
GeoLang's Data Discovery tool allows organisations to discover sensitive data and reduce privacy risks whilst preparing for the future - quickly and easily. With GeoLang, you can discover and classify SaaS, cloud, on-premises and endpoint sensitive data throughout your business. The Data Discovery solution offers auto-mated data location support for Cloud and On-Prem set-ups of:

• Atlassian Confluence, Jira and Bitbucket
• Microsoft Office 365
• Google Workspace
• Hyland Alfresco
• Endpoints (Windows, Mac and Linux)

In addition to finding your sensitive data, GeoLang Data Discovery can reduce potential exposure from data breaches by proactively prompting data owners to remove or remediate sensitive data from nonessential locations. Since you don't know what you don't know you need the ability to trust a tool that looks everywhere.

Keep in mind your organisation's ongoing need for additional computers, new software and a growing cloud footprint. Companies scanning and remediating terabytes of data today will need to plan for petabytes of data tomorrow. Where is the sensitive data that could threaten your organisation, employees, compliance with privacy regulations and customer reputation? You can Schedule a demo of GeoLang Data Discovery to find out.