The exponential growth rate of unstructured data is not a new phenomenon. While the hacking of a database to steal sensitive credit card or personally identifiable information is what dominates the headlines, the reality is that a large amount of an organization’s intellectual property and sensitive information is stored in documents. But they are unsure of where it resides or how much of it they have. And worse yet, it is accessed, shared, copied, and stored all in an unprotected state.
Managing and controlling unstructured data is by far one of the most challenging issues of data security for enterprises. All personally identifiable information and other sensitive information, corporate or otherwise, should be protected with encryption and persistent security policies so that only authorized users can access them. In this article, I will discuss the key drivers behind the influx of unstructured data in enterprises, the risks associated with not properly managing and securing unstructured data, as well as best practices for document protection.