Spirion CEO Identifies Top Data Protection and Privacy Predictions for 2022
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., December 15, 2021 –(BUSINESS WIRE)–Spirion, a pioneer in data protection and privacy, today announced its top predictions for the cyber-related risks enterprises will face in 2022. Ransomware, data breaches and new privacy regulations, combined with a surge in data consumption, will increase the data protection and privacy risks around an organization’s sensitive data.
According to Kevin Coppins, CEO of Spirion, the rampant collection and replication of files and the misuse of sensitive personal data have become unmanageable. A shift anticipated to occur in 2022 is not if or when an organization will experience a data incident, but how often.
The following major trends guide Spirion’s data protection and privacy predictions for 2022:
Data Debt Will be a Primary Culprit of Security Breaches
Organizations have data stored everywhere, from their latest SaaS application to their oldest desktop and everything in between. While organizations have worked tirelessly to secure their perimeters and lock down rights and access, sensitive data remains unfound and unprotected. Minimizing data debt, the difference between what’s needed in a project and what’s finally deployed, and its security impact begins by viewing data as a threat surface; and methodically mitigating that threat based on its relative value, volume, and vulnerability. In 2022, there will be many organizations, with millions of undiscovered and undetected risks across their data landscape, unnecessarily exposing their enterprises and their partners to significant damage.
Automated Context-Rich Data Classification Goes Mainstream
Every piece of data within an organization represents a unique combination of business value and level of risk. As privacy concerns, cybersecurity threats, and compliance mandates gain intensity, the need for effective data classification is more urgent than ever. Classification systems help organizations set boundaries around data access, use, and modification, acting as a natural next step to protect data once discovery efforts are complete. But many organizations find the process challenging because the system is too cumbersome to gain widespread adoption. The sheer volume of data makes the concept of manual classification untenable, and just getting started seems daunting. In the new year, organizations can start simply by focusing on automation to better understand the value of their organization’s data.
Organizations will struggle to shift from the reactive “if” or “when,” to the proactive reality of “how often” they’ll have to deal with data-related incidents
Vendors for years have said “it’s not if you’ll be breached, it’s when.” The shift we are starting to see accelerate is organizations experiencing multiple incidents in a single year, and the types of incidents are expanding. This is a direct result of the ever-expanding data universe, accelerated by the global pandemic and the evolving regulations surrounding sensitive data. In 2022, organizations will begin planning to minimize the costs and business impacts as though they expect to experience three or four significant events a year vs. a singular “black swan” type event. More breach management will be brought in house and organizations will manage data risk much more proactively.
About Spirion
Spirion has relentlessly solved real data protection problems since 2006 with accurate, contextual discovery of structured and unstructured data; purposeful classification; automated real-time risk remediation; and powerful analytics and dashboards to give organizations greater visibility into their most at-risk data and assets. Spirion’s Privacy-Grade data protection software enables organizations to reduce risk exposure, gain visibility into their data footprint, improve business efficiencies and decision-making while facilitating compliance with data protection laws and regulations. Twitter: @Spirion
