Is Stored Data Safe Data?

Chevron, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Bank of America, Time Warner, Marriott International, Northwestern University.

The list of companies, government agencies, and academic institutions that have suffered data breaches and data losses due to hacking, lost backup tapes, stolen laptops, and other data security mishaps goes on and on.

What’s surprising is not that these organizations suffered data breaches or losses. What’s surprising is that at most companies there persists an attitude of relative confidence that their internally stored data residing on servers or mainframes is secure.

But is “at-rest” data– the kind residing on internal storage devices and not being sent across networks– really secure? And in an Internet- and network-connected world, just how secure can that data really be?

With network, storage, and security becoming increasingly commingled in the enterprise, what measures can organizations take to improve the security of their internally stored customer, product and employee data?

To find out, Baseline enlisted a pair of leading data storage and security experts–  Benjamin Woo, enterprise storage vice president at International Data Corp., and Paul Proctor, research vice president at Gartner Inc.— to weigh in on some key questions on data storage and security for the enterprise.