The High Cost of Data Breaches

$9.44 Million
Average cost of a single breach in the USA.

83%
Percentage of companies that have been breached more than once.

Data security is not just an IT problem; it is a financial survival problem.

The Data Security Lifecycle

1. Governance & Discovery

You can't protect what you don't know you have. Discovery involves finding Structured data (databases) and Unstructured data (emails, files).

2. Protection (Encryption)

Data must be encrypted At Rest (in storage) and In Motion (traveling over the web). Key Management is vital—lose the keys, lose the data.

3. Detection & Response

Spotting anomalies (weird behavior) using Analytics and using Orchestration to fix the problem automatically.

Top 5 Ways to Save Money

According to Jeff Crume, these 5 things reduce breach costs the most:

  1. AI: To find threats faster.
  2. DevSecOps: Baking security into software.
  3. Incident Response: Having a plan ready.
  4. Cryptography: Strong encryption.
  5. Employee Training: Reducing human error.

Architect's Dictionary

PII: Personally Identifiable Information (Names, SSNs, Credit Cards).

DLP: Data Loss Prevention. Software that stops sensitive info from being emailed or uploaded by mistake.

Structured Data: Information organized in tables (like an Excel sheet or SQL database).

Unstructured Data: "Messy" data like Word docs, emails, and PDFs.

Retention: The policy of how long you keep data before deleting it to reduce risk.

QSC: Quantum Safe Crypto. New encryption meant to survive the power of future super-computers.

Knowledge Check