The digital transformation has increased the ability of firms to generate, process and share information. It has also created environments more fragmented, with data distributed across enterprise applications, cloud services, collaboration platforms, databases, devices, emails, and developed solutions for different areas.

This technological expansion opens up new opportunities to innovate, automate processes, and make decisions more quickly. However, it also makes it difficult to know precisely where to find critical information, who can access it, how it is used, and how protected it is.

The problem is not only technological. The lack of visibility and control can affect the continuity of operations, regulatory compliance, and the trust of the customers and the ability of the organization to move towards initiatives analytics, automation and artificial intelligence.

Store information already is not enough

For years, organizations concentrated their efforts on expanding its storage capacity, keep backups and protect the infrastructure. These measures are necessary, but are insufficient in the face environments where data is created, duplicated, shared and modified constantly.

A modern strategy should answer key questions for the business:

• Where is the critical information?
• Who can access it, and under what conditions?
• What data are used and which remain abandoned?
• Are there excessive permissions settings or unsafe?
• How the information can be retrieved to an incident?
• What risks could compromise the continuity of the operations?

When these responses are not available, the company operates with blind spots. Which can increase the risk of loss of data, unauthorized access, disruption, failures and decisions based on incomplete data or unreliable.

The information must be managed as an asset

Manage information in a comprehensive manner requires connecting three capabilities that have traditionally worked separately: data management, data governance and security.

The data management it allows you to organize, categorize, and maintain the information available to the people and processes that truly need it.

The data governance establishes responsible, policies, access rules, criteria of quality and life cycles. Its purpose is to ensure that the information has an owner, a purpose and clear conditions of use.

The protection and monitoring identify insecure configurations, vulnerabilities, unauthorized access, suspicious activity and potential threats before they cause a major impact.

These capabilities are strengthened when they work as part of the same strategy. An organization may have advanced tools of security and continue to exposed if you do not know where your sensitive information. Similarly, you can have data organized, but without sufficient controls to prevent unauthorized access, alteration, or loss.

The visibility becomes risks in decisions

It is not possible to protect what is not known. For this reason, the visibility is the starting point to reduce risks and set priorities.

The organization needs to identify his sources of data, applications, users, devices, permissions, information flows, and dependencies to be technological. This view allows you to recognize critical assets, identify gaps, and to understand which situations represent a real risk to the operation.

Dashboards and indicators also play a key role. By integrating access information, settings, exposure, use of platforms and state of the data, the areas of Technology, Security and Address can work on a shared vision of the environment.

The visibility is not only strengthens the security, it also allows you to prioritize investments, assign responsibilities and to focus efforts where they can generate the greatest impact.

The prevention reduces the operational impact

Many organizations still act after an incident occurs. This reactive approach can increase the cost of recovery, extend the periods of unavailability and affect the confidence of customers, employees and partners.

A preventive strategy combines different capabilities:

• Periodic evaluation of configurations and controls.
• Analysis of exposure and safety tests.
• Identity protection and access.
• Monitoring of events and activities suspicious.
• Classification and protection of sensitive information.
• Backup and recovery of data.
• Response plans and continuity.

The human factor must also be integrated to this vision. Even the controls in more advanced technological lose effectiveness when people don't recognize a phishing attempt, share information through insecure channels or use credentials weak.

The security, therefore, is not solely dependent on the infrastructure. Requires a combination of technology, processes, responsible, and organizational culture.

Reliable data prepare the company for artificial intelligence

The management and protection of information not only seek to prevent incidents. They also create the conditions necessary for the company to adopt new technologies without porting existing problems.

Artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and automation will depend on the quality, availability, and reliability of the data. If the information is fragmented, outdated, duplicated or exposed by inadequate permissions, these initiatives can reproduce and amplify the same problems that the organization tries to solve.

Before climbing to the adoption of AI, companies need to understand:

• What information can be used.
• What data require additional protection.
• Who is responsible for its quality.
• What users and solutions can access it.
• How to monitor your usage.

When controls are clear, traceability and responsible defined, the areas can develop reports, automation and intelligent solutions with greater confidence.

The starting point is in the current capabilities

Strengthen the management and protection of information does not necessarily imply acquire more technology. Before you incorporate new solutions, it is necessary to understand how is working the current environment, what resources already exist and where there are major gaps or opportunities for improvement.

A diagnosis allows you to get that vision and turn it into a roadmap of prioritized, differentiating which requires the immediate attention of those who can develop progressively.

The roadmap must connect the technological priorities with specific goals, accountable, and measurable results. The government and the security of the information are not projects that end up after a deployment; they are capacities that must evolve along with the company.

Convert the information into an advantage for the business

The digital complexity requires overcoming the fragmented view of the data, security and technology. When these capabilities work in a coordinated way, the company not only reduces your exposure to risk, but also creates better conditions to take advantage of the information and move towards new digital initiatives.

At Inova Solutions we assist the organizations in this process, since the evaluation of your current environment to the definition of a roadmap that connect your business needs with their data capabilities, security, government, and artificial intelligence.

Because an organization is prepared is not the one that has more technology, but that which knows exactly what to protect, how to do it and why it matters.