Leslie Wiggins

If you grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, you probably worried about the Bermuda Triangle, piranhas in the tub and quicksand. It didn’t matter where you lived. One second, you’re hiking in the park behind your house, and the next you’re sinking like Indiana Jones. To make a massive jump, this is similar to the data security situation many organizations face today. Maybe you’re a new company selling widgets online or offering the best interest rates.

In 2021 alone, humanity (and a few robots) will create 79 sextillion bytes of data. That’s nearly 10 million times the estimated number of grains of sand on Earth. And those 79 sextillion bytes of data are in addition to all the data we already have. So today, organizations everywhere are not just swimming in data; they are sinking into their own data quicksand. When companies take the time to identify and understand their data, it becomes like gold. And just like gold, it needs to be protected.

If you are like most security leaders responsible for protecting your company’s crown jewels, you’ve certainly asked: Can malicious insiders access my organization’s sensitive and mission-critical data? Indeed, it’s a good question to ask, because there may be unseen torpedoes in motion that can sink your efforts to curtail this volatile behavior. Too few organizations can fully visualize and understand what’s happening to sensitive and regulated data.