How to make the most of your data ‒ Part 5: Protect your data

I am at the last of a series of recommendations on how to make the most of your data from SAP®’s news article titled ‘Five Ways to Make the Most of Your Data’, and today’s blog is about protecting your data. If you missed any of the earlier blogs, you can read them at the links below:

1. Leave your data where it is

2. Make sure you can handle all data types

3. Harness data to drive automation

4. Democratize data

5. Protect your data

Protecting your data is critical. Recently, a ransomware attack on one of the largest human resources companies, Ultimate Kronos Group (known as Kronos), means its systems may be offline for weeks, and this may also impact employees’ pay.

I know this article on data protection is listed last in the series but it should actually be at the top; you really need to think about security BEFORE you put any data in.

Thanks to the pandemic, I am binging ‘Seinfeld’ on Netflix. I recently watched the episode where Kramer overhears a tip on a hot horse race “...his mother was a mudder” which allowed him to win big and celebrate big before walking up to the counter in front of his race enthusiast cohorts to pick up a big pile of cash. It’s only when he turns around, piles of cash in hand, that he starts to think about protection. That’s a long way to go to include a Seinfeld reference, but you get the point; you need to have a secure place to put your data before you start.

 

 

Your data platform must take into account any areas of exposure or vulnerability and build in the right security, access controls, and governance to protect your data – and information shared across your network.
- Extract from SAP’s news article

To make the most of your data, you have to include considerations for physical security and protection of your actual hardware, as well as access controls and protocols for data access.

At EPI-USE Labs, we take data protection seriously.

Find out more about Data Secure™, our comprehensive data protection solution that comes with pre-defined masking rules; our EPI-USE Labs' SAP Data Privacy Suite which helps you comply with data privacy legislation; and our Data Privacy and GDPR Services for SAP.