Your organization’s crown jewels — its data! — should be protected at all costs, of course. Securing that data — whether it was created by your organization or is consumer or third-party data — begins with managing it properly.
There is an exponential amount of ways data can benefit your organization, and a reflective amount of ways it can open your organization up to additional risk. One often overlooked facet of the data management lifecycle includes ROT data not being properly monitored or managed.
What is ROT Data?
Redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT) data is the digital information a business has despite the data having no business or legal value. This could be a duplicate piece of information, an old planning document, or simply data that doesn’t serve the company any more.
The more data your organization has, the wider its attack surface becomes. Now much of that data is necessary, useful, and even considered critical. But other data that is redundant, obsolete, or trivial can be floating around, adding a net negative to your security team’s resources.
Visibility and classification are the first steps of de-risking the data flowing through your organization, as explained in this webinar.
How are you handling ROT Data?
Now we know what ROT data is, but what do we do with it to help de-risk our data storage and the organization as a whole — and remain compliant?
Let’s look at a three-pronged approach of actions and best practices that will help your security teams handle ROT data.
This all begins with data discovery, of course. From there you can gain visibility into and take action on the data your company is currently controlling. Find out how automating these processes will keep you both compliant and secure by requesting a demo today.