At the Jaguar Land Rover Experience Centre in Lonehill, Johannesburg, senior IT and security leaders recently gathered to discuss all things data, risk, regulation and security. The exclusive executive roundtable, hosted by Varonis and TechCentral, gave participants the opportunity to gain insights from a new report on cloud data risk, “The Great SaaS Data Exposure”.
The topic was, “Do you know where your sensitive data lives, and is it safe?” Sharing, learning and challenging each other’s perspectives led to a common theme: a vital concern among attendees was having a false sense of security. We asked where everyone stood on their respective “journeys” to the cloud, and while many have completed cloud migrations, security concerns remained for almost all attendees.
Some of the most popular topics at the roundtable were finding a trusted partner, exposing possibilities and building a solid team. Yet many organisations lack unified visibility and control over data within SaaS and IaaS services. In turn, many companies remain vulnerable to devastating breaches.
In nearly every case, breaches are about data. To combat potential attacks, you must be able to answer three core questions about your organisation’s data:
- Who has access to our sensitive data?
- How are they gaining access?
- What are they doing with it?
Roundtable host Varonis shared key statistics on cloud data risk from its recent report, “The Great SaaS Data Exposure”. Varonis analysed a sample of more than 700 data risk assessments to uncover companies’ actual exposure in the cloud. It found the average company has an alarming amount of sensitive data exposed not only to all employees but, in many cases, to the entire Internet.
For example, most companies are sitting on exposed data in the cloud. A whopping 81% of organisations had sensitive SaaS data exposed. In the average company, 157 000 sensitive records are exposed to everyone on the Internet through SaaS sharing features, representing US$28-million in data-breach risk. One out of every 10 records in the cloud is exposed to all employees — creating an impossibly large internal blast radius, which maximises damage during a ransomware attack.
Although we know we’re not going to solve the world’s data exposure problems in one sitting, the willingness to share and engage during the discussion flowed into the next part of the event – following the informative session was a nail-biting 4×4 experience in brand-new, state-of-the-art Range Rovers and Land Rovers. Attendees paired off and stepped into the vehicles for a rugged 4×4 experience on an obstacle course filled with steep inclines, deep wading and nerve-racking declines.
Whether you’re off-roading in the wilderness or planning your next big data migration, your safest bet is to assess the situation, plan your approach and execute with the best possible solutions.
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