In the past decade, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of cloud services across companies. This increase has made it harder for security teams to fully understand where and what data exists when so many applications and third parties exist. According to Gartner forecasts, spending on the cloud is estimated to reach $500 billion in 2022 and $600 billion in 2023. This rapid growth is due in part to the advantages that the cloud offers, such as increased agility, flexibility, and scalability.

The last ten years have seen a revolution in how enterprise software companies have rolled out their solutions. Previously, the default offering was to implement a Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) software package running on a client’s on-premise hardware infrastructure. But that’s now old hat – nobody is doing that anymore.

Today’s hybrid IT infrastructures make it more challenging than ever to identify and protect sensitive data. Across a smorgasbord of cloud services and employee-owned BYOD devices, sensitive data is often stored and shared in many different areas. And this data dispersal opens up a wider surface for issues such as data leakage and theft.‍

Data flow mapping is a technique used to identify the interaction points between all parties in an organization. It tracks the flow of data within the company, including the personal information of the customers, staff, and other third parties involved. In addition, it is essential to implement data flow mapping to comply with regulations like EU GDPR and PII. Today, many organizations have moved to cloud services, increasing the need for data flow mapping even more.

Cloud data security means - securing your data assets and resources running on the cloud. The adoption of cloud technologies offers flexibility and benefits that were never possible with traditional computing. For this reason, almost 83% of enterprise workloads are currently running on cloud platforms. Unfortunately, due to this radical shift, we also see a steady increase of cybercriminals focusing their efforts on compromising cloud infrastructure and data.

The importance of cyber security is increasing rapidly. With an ever-evolving threat landscape, there is a high likelihood that most systems can be vulnerable to some kind of security risk. Therefore, keeping up to date with all the changes happening in the security landscape is crucial for any professional. ‍ However, as busy professionals, researching all these things is not a viable option.

Among the many beneficial changes stemming from the cloud delivery model is the ability for development teams to build and run scalable applications using only cloud infrastructure. This so-called cloud native computing includes containers, single-purpose serverless functions, and microservices for resilient and highly flexible apps.‍ One recent survey found that 97% of IT decision-makers and 96% of developers planned to expand the use of cloud native applications over the coming 12 months.

Data protection solutions, and in particular, Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platforms, should be built to effectively map, monitor, and protect your organization’s most valuable asset — your data. But not all cloud data security and compliance tools offer the same advantages, and not all will be suitable for your business’s unique data requirements.

In today’s global data economy ecosystem, businesses gather and store an abundance of sensitive information about individuals inside their IT environments. Carelessness in protecting this sensitive data often exposes it to increased data breach risks, the costs of which have climbed to $4.24 million per breach, according to the most recent figures. A data breach is distinct from data exposure.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first six of them sharpening my ax.” So what has that to do with automated data compliance? $575 Million (and potentially up to $700) in fines and compensations! That is what Equifax Inc. has agreed to pay as part of a global settlement after failing to take reasonable steps to secure its network, leading to the 2017 data breach.