Study: 62% of security pros don’t know where their sensitive data is

Ask organizations today about the value of data and you’re likely to hear it measured in terms of competitive advantage, customer experience and revenue generation. As Dante Disparte and Daniel Wagner put it in a December 2016 HBR article, data is “becoming a centerpiece of corporate value creation.”

“Today most organizations are data-driven to one degree or another. Data contributes not only to brand equity, but to what constitutes product and service delivery in globally connected and hyper-competitive markets,” the pair wrote.

But the value of data security is still largely defined “in terms of risk, cost, and regulatory compliance,” notes Forrester Research in the executive summary of a new report commissioned by data protection software provider Varonis Systems.

One of the key findings of the Forrester survey of 150 data security professionals in the U.S. and Canada is that while 76 percent of respondents claim a mature security strategy, the vast majority report facing technical challenges (93%) and organizational challenges (90%) with data security. And, Forrester says, they “are focused on threats rather than their data, and do not have a good handle on understanding and controlling sensitive data.”

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