The Hidden Cost of Data Protection

Companies today realize the threats and consequences of data loss, and by now most have some sort of data protection in place. But businesses that rushed into data protection for fear of losing precious information may have been too quick to throw together a patchwork quilt of security software that is now proving costly.

In the rush to get data protection in place, many companies frantically stitched together technology from various vendors and overlooked issues such as software integration and policy. The fear of leaving themselves vulnerable to data loss resulted in a lack of planning and processes for technology implementations, and now they are left to deal with the consequences.

Now that technologies are in place, companies are faced with ongoing auditing and the need to prove to auditors that 1) they did enough to protect themselves, and 2) that they chose the right paths of protection. In fact, despite implementing a slew of security solutions, companies are finding that they may not have done much to actually lower their risk, because they didn’t actually understand what data needed to be protected in the first place. Furthermore, the mishmash of security solutions is impossible to manage and has greatly increased costs.

To make matters worse, those who haven’t yet implemented data protection technology are seeing the spike in other organizations’ data protection costs and are beginning to evaluate a dangerous risk equation. They are willing to run the risk of not protecting their data and facing the consequences and costs of a potential data breech as opposed to dealing with implementing what they feel are costly and complicated data protection solutions. Once companies decide that data loss is a more desirable option, there is a big problem.

Companies can have peace of mind that the hidden cost of data protection is manageable. By implementing a centralized management console, data can be managed from one location and can be easily and consistently harvested for auditing. Furthermore, one management console will cut the number of IT staffers needed to deal with the security technologies, freeing up time for other IT issues and reducing costs. Centralized management also enables event monitoring and incident details to prove internal and regulatory compliance to auditors, so companies can be confident that they are taking. McAfee offers data protection on a centralized management console with McAfee Total Protection for Data.

Tags: Data Protection