Organizations across America are facing unprecedented challenges in building effective, manageable security programs in order to protect the wide array of sensitive data they are responsible for keeping safe. Corporations, educational institutions and government agencies are often beholden to many different regulations and legal compliance requirements because of the various datasets they maintain. For example, a university will have a student health center that stores Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and other health information covered under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Additionally, that same university’s bookstore, food services and other student services will store credit card transaction data, which are mandated by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) to be protected. Government agencies, such as the recently breached Office of Personnel Management, store employee records and related PII that may be further regulated, depending on the state or federal district in which the agency is based.
These various needs can be difficult for organizations to balance and maintain, but regardless of the type of organization, critical and sensitive data must be protected and kept safe from hackers, malicious insiders, malware and other forms of cyber-attack. Add in the normal budgetary and human resource challenges that all organizations face, and you’ve got what can seem like an insurmountable security problem.