The life of a CIO is not dissimilar to that of a trapeze artist. The reason we’re able to soar so high is because of the safety net beneath. Remove that, and the whole show comes crashing down to the ground. In a similar way, the only way we can unleash innovation-driven growth is if we have a safe and secure foundation on which to build these initiatives.
Yet too often, the relationship between innovation and security is misunderstood. It is seen by many CIOs as an either/or calculation: that it is impossible to use data to drive business growth while also safeguarding it. In fact, data-centric security can be a business enabler if managed correctly.
Meeting the challenge
The “innovation versus security” dilemma runs deep in many organizations. It’s reflected in budget planning. Because IT security is viewed as a function which neither generates revenue nor reduces operational cost, the funds allocated to it are still relatively low. Although cybersecurity spending across Europe is set to grow by 12.3% annually in 2024, some companies spend as little as 5-6% of their IT budget on the function.
That’s even as the cost of security talent surges on the back of persistent industry skills shortages. The latest estimates put the global shortfall of cyber professionals at an all-time high of 4.8 million, a 19% annual increase. In Europe the shortfall is up 13% to 392,000, while in North America the gap is 542,600. Yet despite over half (58%) of information security professionals claiming that skills shortages are putting their organization at significant risk, over a third (37%) are experiencing budget cuts and a quarter (25%) are witnessing layoffs.
This makes no sense at a time when the average corporate attack surface is bigger than ever, having expanded with investments in innovative, cloud-fueled technologies. Could these budget cuts simply be proof of the fact that existing approaches to cyber-risk management are failing? Is the safety net, composed of multiple disjointed and often ineffective solutions, beginning to stretch and break?
CIOs need a new approach to break the cycle of escalating budget demands for technology that doesn’t do what it should. They need a security strategy that preserves innovation, rather than hinders it.
Introducing data-centric security
This is where a data-centric approach comes into its own. Unlike traditional cybersecurity, which might guard the network perimeter, the endpoint or the email inbox, data-centric security focuses on protecting the data—wherever it is stored or used in the enterprise. It mandates that this data is automatically discovered and classified before protection is applied seamlessly in line with policy.
By implementing tokenization as a protection method, enterprises can crucially continue to use the underlying data for analytics and other innovative growth projects, while keeping it safe from prying eyes. Thus, data-centric security helps to minimize cyber risk and drive innovation, solving the CIO’s dilemma. Not only that but by enabling organizations to dispense with buying and managing ineffective point solutions, it can also help to save much-needed budget.
In this way, the CIO can soar higher than ever before, safe in the knowledge that they have a fully functioning safety net below.
In summary, data-centric security could help your organization to:
- Leverage data for growth without compromising on security and privacy
- Reduce risk with improved data intelligence and stronger security posture
- Increase operational efficiency, by allowing for simpler, more consistent security management
- Implement privacy- and security-by-design, by embedding data-centric security into enterprise applications and data platforms
- Gain more control over data security in the cloud (Bring Your Own Protection to CSPs)
But don’t take our word for it. Read how one of the world’s largest fashion retailers reduced data breach risk, how a leading Canadian bank enabled data-driven innovation with secure datasets, and how a major American insurance provider used data-centric security to enhance regulatory compliance.
