Although “data protection” and “data privacy” are frequently used interchangeably, there is an essential distinction between the two. Data privacy specifies who has access to the data, whereas data protection provides the tools and regulations to limit data access. Companies must protect sensitive user data, and compliance regulations ensure that businesses honor users’ requests for privacy.
Data protection and privacy laws typically apply to personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI). It is critical to a company’s growth, administration, and finances. By protecting their data, businesses can better comply with regulatory requirements and avoid reputational harm and data breaches.
Among the technologies used in data protection solutions are data loss prevention (DLP), storage with integrated data protection, firewalls, encryption, and endpoint protection.
What Is Data Protection and Why Is It Important?
Data protection is a set of strategies and procedures to safeguard your data’s privacy, accessibility, and integrity. Data security is another term for it. Every organization that collects, processes, or stores sensitive data must have a data security strategy in place. A successful strategy can lessen the impact of a security breach or natural disaster while preventing data loss, theft, and corruption.
What Are Data Protection Principles?
Data protection regulations aid in the preservation and accessibility of data. It includes data management and availability components, operational data backup, and business continuity/disaster recovery (BCDR).
Here are vital data management aspects relevant to data protection:
- Data availability—ensuring that users can still access and use the information required to conduct business even if data is lost or corrupted.
- Data lifecycle management entails automatically sending vital to protect your data to offline and online storage.
- Information lifecycle management—entails valuing, cataloging, and safeguarding information assets against various threats such as malware and virus attacks, machine failure, application and user errors, and facility disruptions.
What Is Data Privacy and Why Is it Important?
Data privacy is a set of rules that govern how sensitive and significant data should be collected and handled. PHI and PII are two types of data that are typically protected by data privacy laws. Financial, health, social security, or identification numbers, names, dates of birth, and contact information are all included.
Concerns about data privacy apply to all sensitive information handled by businesses, including that of their clients, shareholders, and employees. This data is frequently essential for business growth, operations, and finances.
Access to sensitive information can be restricted using data privacy. It protects data from malicious use by criminals and assists organizations in meeting legal requirements.
What Are Data Protection Regulations?
Data protection laws govern specific data types’ collection, transmission, and use. Personal data includes a wide range of information, including names, images, email addresses, account numbers, IP addresses of personal computers, and biometric data.
Different countries, states, and industries have different data privacy and protection laws. For example, China’s data privacy law went into effect on June 1, 2017, and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in 2018. Noncompliance may result in reputational harm and monetary penalties depending on the nature of the violation and the instructions provided by each law and governing body.
Compliance with one set of rules only sometimes implies compliance with all laws. Each law contains many provisions that may apply in one situation but not another. Given this level of complexity, implementing compliance consistently and appropriately takes time.
12 Data Protection Technologies and Practices to Safeguard Your Information
When it comes to data security, you have a plethora of storage and management options. Solutions can manage access, monitor activity, and combat threats. Some of the most popular techniques and tools are as follows:
1. Data Discovery
The first step in data protection is determining which data sets exist in the organization, which are critical to business operations, and which contain sensitive data that may be subject to compliance regulations.
2. Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
A set of strategies and tools for preventing data from being misplaced, lost, or deleted by accident. Protect yoir Data loss prevention solutions typically include several tools for preventing and recovering from data loss.
3. Storage With Built-in Data Protection
Modern storage hardware includes disk clustering and redundancy as standard features. Cloudian’s Hyperstore, for example, offers low RTO/RPO, quick access, and up to 14 nines of durability at a low cost, allowing for massive data storage. More information can be found in our secure data storage guide.
4. Backup
The system copies and stores data separately, enabling it to restore data in case of loss or alteration. Sustaining business operations requires critical backups in case the original data is lost, damaged, or destroyed, intentionally or unintentionally. Please refer to our data availability guide for more information.
5. Snapshots
A snapshot, like a backup, is a complete image of a protected system that includes all data and system files. A system can be restored to a previous state using a snapshot.
6. Replication
A method of routinely copying data from a secure system to another location. It provides a continuously updated copy of the data, allowing for immediate failover to the copy if the primary system fails.
7. Firewalls
Tools for monitoring and filtering network traffic. Firewalls can be used to restrict access to or transfer of data to only authorized users.
8. Authentication and Authorization
The controls facilitate the verification of user credentials and ensure the correct application of user privileges. Identity and access management (IAM) solutions often combine these controls with role-based access controls (RBAC).
9. Encryption
It uses an algorithm to change the content of the data, which requires a decryption key to restore. Encryption prevents unauthorized access even if someone steals the data by rendering it unreadable. You can find additional information in the data encryption guide.
10. Endpoint Protection
Protects the ports, routers, and devices that serve as network entry points. Endpoint protection software typically monitors and filters traffic at the network’s perimeter.
11. Data Erasure
The removal of obsolete data reduces liability. You can do it regularly or when you have processed and analyzed the data and it is no longer relevant. Several compliance regulations, including the GDPR, require deleting unnecessary data. For more information on the GDPR Data Protection Regulation, please see our GDPR Protect your data.
12. Disaster Recovery
A set of procedures and tools govern a company’s response to a disaster, such as a cyber attack, natural disaster, or major equipment failure. In the event of a disaster, typical steps in the disaster recovery process include establishing a remote disaster recovery site with backups of protected systems and switching operations to those systems.
Data Protection and Privacy with Cloudian HyperStore
Data security necessitates the use of dependable storage technology. Cloudian’s storage appliances are easy to set up and use, offering instant access to petabyte-scale data. Cloudian supports parallel data transfer for high-speed backup and restoration (18 TB per hour for 16 nodes).
Cloudian guarantees the availability and protect your data. With HyperStore, you can back up and archive your data, giving you highly accessible versions for restoration in the event of a disaster.
HyperStore stores data behind a firewall, users can define geo-boundaries for data access, and define policies for data synchronization between their devices. HyperStore combines the power of cloud-based file sharing with the ability to safeguard data in any cloud environment in an on-premises device.
To Conclude
We must not overlook data security and user privacy as they are critical issues. Businesses can ensure that they are taking every precaution to protect their data and their users’ privacy by following the 12 Steps outlined in this blog post. We can only ensure data privacy and user information security through meticulous planning, stringent security protocols, and user education. After all, who will protect our customers’ information if we don’t?
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