Data Security

What is data security?

Data security is the protection of digital data, such as information in a database, from destructive forces and from the unwanted actions of unauthorized users, such as via cyberattack or a data breach.

Data security vs data privacy

Although related, data security and data privacy focus on different aspects of protecting sensitive information.

• Data security is about the tools and processes that safeguard digital information from unauthorized access, loss, or corruption. It includes practices like encryption, network security, and threat detection to protect data integrity and reduce risks from cyberattacks.
• Data privacy, in contrast, deals with policies and regulations that govern how information is collected, shared, and used. Privacy frameworks define who is allowed to access personal data and under what circumstances.

In short, privacy governs who can access information, while security enforces how that access is protected. Both must work together under a clear data security policy to create trust and resilience.

Importance of data security

As data volumes within organizations grow, so must secure policies and procedures. In addition, as the complexity of data storage environments and the data itself continues to grow, so must data security.

Organizations should strongly consider:

• Obligation: Organizations that store user data have a legal and ethical responsibility to protect that data. When an organization stores personal details and payment information, it also must accept the task of safeguarding that data. Organizations must also communicate their security practices very clearly.
• Reputation: When a data breach occurs, it can negatively impact the organization’s reputation. Organizations should develop clear and concise procedures for data security.
• Resources: Data breaches cost organization’s time and money. Investing in effective data security practices as early as possible can save resources by avoiding the labor and monetary costs of recovering compromised data.

Types of data security

Organizations use multiple approaches to protect their systems and ensure compliance. Four of the most widely used include:

Data Encryption

Encryption converts sensitive data into unreadable code that can only be accessed with the correct key. It is one of the most effective ways to defend against cyber threats during transmission or storage.

Data Erasure

Data erasure permanently removes information from devices so it cannot be recovered later. This practice is essential when decommissioning servers or laptops, ensuring regulatory compliance and protecting data integrity.

Data Masking

Masking hides sensitive details—such as personal identifiers—by replacing them with realistic but fictitious values. This helps limit exposure in testing environments without risking an actual security threat.

Data Resiliency

Resiliency ensures systems can continue operating during an outage or cyber incident. It involves backup systems, recovery processes, and monitoring to safeguard information security and minimize downtime caused by disruptions like ransomware.

Best practices for ensuring data security

Data security techniques can vary based on your organization’s unique use cases, but some standard best practices exist.

While some cyber security solution providers may advocate for data backup as a critical security measure, this strategy can incur high costs when storing large amounts of data. Instead, here are five robust data security best practices you can deploy:

1. Ensure physical security of servers and devices

Whether your company stores data on-premises or in the cloud, you should check that your organization or cloud provider secures facilities against intruders, fire damage and changing climate conditions.

If storing data on-premises, your team can analyze a physical device’s security throughout its lifecycle. For example, when disposing of a server, it’s essential to delete data from the device before discarding it. Or, if someone damages or destroys a machine, take appropriate security measures to guarantee it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.

2. Implement access management and controls

Identity and access management (IAM) processes define who can interact with software or data systems so that only people with proper permissions can view or edit data assets. A single sign-on (SSO) system is an excellent example of IAM technology, as it enables your security team to set user permissions across platforms in your organization.

To streamline this practice, you might define access controls by roles or groups of people. For example, IT administrators or executives may have access to a wide range of data. In contrast, contractors or external vendors likely have a much narrower scope. This framework simplifies the administration process and minimizes the chance of accidentally granting too much access to a new user.

3. Stay updated on application security and patching

Due to unpatched vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and user errors, security susceptibilities constantly arise in software applications and operating systems. Encryption protocols governing how a company stores and transmits data can also expose an organization to harm since they change frequently.

To avoid these precarious situations, security administrators and software developers must regularly patch and upgrade their company’s software to verify they’re not running any compromised code. Regular audits of all software libraries an organization uses can also help minimize the chance of your team missing an employee using an old software package.

4. Educate employees proactively on data security

Without proactive, strategic security training, employees can unknowingly expose your company to risks — like connecting to an unsecured network or downloading unapproved applications.

Instead of an extended video module plan that people potentially write off as a yearly “checklist item,” offer your employees a beneficial interactive program that helps them recognize their risky data behavior.

For example, if an employee tries to send patented information to an unapproved shared drive, have security software that flags the behavior, alerts your security team and helps contain the damage by automatically sending the employee a brief reminder on approved sharing.

Lastly, encourage your security team to be open and collaborative during employee training. You want employees to reach out about concerns before damage happens.

5. Monitor all data and its movement on network and endpoints

With most companies embracing hybrid and remote work, data is increasingly moving to edge devices like laptops and phones — presenting new security vulnerabilities.

In particular, companies can no longer rely on strict on-premise firewalls as the primary way to contain data flow and prevent the risk of data exfiltration.

To combat this hazard, some security teams flag specific data movements as risky or only monitor certain important data. But even with the most complex policies and tools in place, data still slips through the cracks. It’s more effective to treat all data as potential IP and monitor file movements to untrusted locations.

Most significant risks to data security

The data security landscape continues to evolve as work migrates to the cloud and remote access models. These changing conditions have created some significant risks to data security:

Insider threats

An insider threat is a cyber security risk introduced by an individual with permitted access to a company’s systems and data. They can arise from anyone using an organization’s network or applications, such as employees, partners, vendors, interns, suppliers or contractors.

For example, when an employee puts in their two weeks and prepares to move on to a new opportunity, it’s not uncommon for them — maliciously or not — to take company data with them. They might send files to their personal email account or use a thumb drive.

There are many real-life examples of insider threats wreaking havoc on organizations, so it’s crucial to have processes and technology that can detect and prevent risky data movements before it’s too late.

Non-secure cloud app behavior

While cloud technology and tools have enabled new ways of working, they’ve also intensified the scale and impact of data exfiltration.

Some of the most common non-secure cloud app behaviors include:

• Using untrusted personal devices to log into corporate cloud apps
• Making private cloud links publicly available
• Downloading corporate data via cloud app to a home device
• Using unsanctioned clouds (usually personal clouds) to share data with 3rd parties and colleagues
Whenever an employee or authorized user performs one of these actions, they compromise cloud security and put your company data at risk.

Hackers

Hackers are constantly creating new approaches to extract, steal and exploit data from organizations. Ransomware and phishing are two common attacks.

These threats are particularly challenging to ward off as they typically use psychological tricks to get information from careless or untrained employees.

Email as a primary security vulnerability

Email security threats are among the greatest risks to data security protection today. As a central form of business communication, email has become a prime target for attackers seeking access to sensitive data.

Organizations face a dual challenge: defending against traditional threats like viruses and malware while also combating sophisticated attacks including:

• Phishing and spear-phishing: Targeted campaigns using social engineering to steal credentials
• Whale phishing: Attacks specifically targeting executives and high-value individuals
• Weaponized attachments: Malicious files disguised as legitimate documents
• Data exfiltration: Inadvertent or purposeful leaks of intellectual property and sensitive information

These advanced threats use psychological manipulation and technical deception to trick even trained employees into compromising security. With remote work expanding the attack surface, email has become the primary vector for data breaches, making comprehensive email security essential for any data protection strategy.

Data security technologies for email protection

To address email-based threats, organizations must deploy multiple layers of security.

Core Protection Technologies:

• Anti-malware and spam filtering: Real-time scanning to block malicious content and unwanted messages
• Targeted threat protection: Advanced detection for zero-day attacks, impersonation fraud, and sophisticated phishing attempts
• Content control and DLP: Scanning outbound communications to prevent data leaks and ensure compliance with security policies
• Secure messaging and encryption: Protecting sensitive communications without requiring users to master complex encryption software

Supporting Infrastructure:

• Cloud archiving: Centralized repositories for email data with eDiscovery capabilities for compliance and legal requirements
• Backup and continuity: Ensuring email availability during outages or ransomware attacks
• Identity and access management: Controlling who can access email systems and sensitive data

These technologies work together to address threats at multiple points in the email lifecycle while maintaining usability for legitimate business communications.

Data security and GDPR requirements

When the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May 2018, data security became a primary concern. Since then, the EU's new data privacy regulations require companies to get explicit consent from EU residents before collecting, storing and using their personal data. EU residents have the right to request from any organization what data about them is being stored and used. And residents can withdraw their consent at any time, obligating organizations to erase their data. The regulations also feature extensive directives concerning data security standards.

Many organizations had to overhaul business processes and technology to ensure data security and compliance with GDPR regulations.

When GDPR rolled out in May 2018, companies started looking for innovative solutions that would ensure data security while minimizing the cost and administrative burden of complying with GDPR regulations.

GDPR compliance requires email data security

Since GDPR took effect, compliance changed the way many organizations manage email. And with cyber attacks heavily targeting email systems, ensuring email data security is growing more difficult by the day. Organizations are still faced with the need to adopt technology that allows for granular archiving, search, retrieval and deletion of emails, in order to comply with user requests.

How Mimecast improves data security

Mimecast’s human risk management platform helps organizations implement comprehensive email security standards while reducing complexity:

Threat Protection Implementation: Mimecast's Targeted Threat Protection provides 100% anti-malware protection and 99% anti-spam protection, while also defending against sophisticated attacks. The system scans all email in real-time to identify malicious links, weaponized attachments, and social-engineering techniques. Suspicious emails can be rejected, held for review, or delivered with warnings based on administrator-defined policies.

Data Loss Prevention and Compliance: For organizations needing GDPR compliance and data protection, Mimecast offers:

• Content Control policies that scan every outbound email to prevent inadvertent or purposeful leaks
• Secure Messaging enabling encrypted communications directly from users' email clients
• Large file transfer capabilities (up to 2GB) to prevent shadow IT usage of unsecured file-sharing services
• Cloud Archive with granular search, retrieval, and deletion capabilities for regulatory compliance

Business Continuity: Mimecast's cloud-based architecture ensures email availability through enterprise data protection and replication across geographically dispersed data centers, providing resilience against outages and ransomware attacks.

This integrated approach allows organizations to manage all email security functions through a single console, simplifying administration while ensuring comprehensive protection.

Conclusion

As data volumes and cyber threats continue to grow, email remains at the center of organizational risk. Implementing robust email security is no longer optional—it's a critical business requirement for protecting reputation, resources, and regulatory compliance.

For organizations seeking to strengthen their data security posture, Mimecast provides the comprehensive defense needed in today's threat landscape. By combining advanced threat protection, data loss prevention, and compliance capabilities in a single platform, Mimecast enables organizations to secure their most vulnerable communication channel without sacrificing productivity or ease of use.

To learn more about implementing enterprise-grade email security and ensuring data protection across your organization, explore Mimecast's email and collaboration security solutions or schedule a demo.