Sir Walter Raleigh once famously said, “For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”
If Raleigh was alive today, he might have expressed the same sentiment for data. Organizations controlling and harnessing data’s potential have a leg up against competitors. Yet, businesses find themselves often overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of their data and are struggling to keep pace with shifting security risks.
Data success isn’t defined by the volume of data, but rather the mindset of the organization. Data fuels growth, innovation, and smarter decision-making, yet many IT and security leaders still ask themselves the following questions:
- Are we making decisions based on reliable data insights?
- Is data guiding our long-term success?
- Are we in control of our data — or is it in control of us?
Mastering data isn’t just a strategic advantage — it’s essential in today’s competitive market. To thrive in a data-driven world where speed, innovation, and security must work together, the right solutions can make all the difference.
Understanding and Securing Data
Data is used to improve customer interactions, create new solutions, and maintain that illustrious competitive edge. But simply collecting it isn’t enough.
The secret to data success comes from securing it, understanding it, and putting it to work effectively. Unfortunately, for years, this was almost impossible. IT and security teams faced hurdles with complex, imprecise, expensive, and time-consuming data processes.
Today there are tools to transform data management from reactive to proactive, driving innovation, resilience, and a competitive advantage – but not every solution is created equally. There are three key pillars security leaders should look for in tools to secure and leverage data.
- Uncover Your Data.
Visibility is the foundation of any data security strategy. It’s critical to know where your data is stored, who has access to it, and what sensitive information it contains. Data sprawl, which refers to the uncontrolled growth and fragmentation of data across an ecosystem, is a challenge for many organizations.
To manage this, organizations should leverage tools that discover, classify, and map sensitive data across all environments. This visibility allows security and IT teams to monitor data flows, detect anomalies, and respond to risks before they escalate. A comprehensive view of data activity shifts security from reactive to proactive.
- Control Your Data.
Once you understand your data estate, control is the next step. To protect sensitive information, it’s critical to minimize risk. Organizations must identify overly broad permissions and ensure “least privilege.” In other words, only give access to those who need it, for the shortest possible time.
However, this is easier said than done — having full control of data becomes challenging when it is copied and moved between environments, such as from a private to a public network, or when it is changed from encrypted to unencrypted. Doing so can create what is known as “similar data” — data that was initially secure but becomes exposed when moved into a different environment (ex. data moving from production to a lower environment).
The best data security strategies go beyond identifying these issues; they enforce access policies, automate corrective actions, and integrate with existing identity and access management systems to help maintain a strong security posture, even with changing business needs.
Data security tools should have access control measures that can help establish role-based access controls (RBAC) and attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies, ensuring the right users have the right data at the right time.
- Update Your Data
Data security is not static. Effective solutions shouldn’t just use real-time monitoring to detect risks and threats; they should anticipate them. Visibility into suspicious activities, with real-time alerts, and automated responses can enable security teams to act swiftly, ensuring businesses stay resilient and adaptive to emerging threats.
Scalability Starts with Continuous Data Security
As organizations grow and adopt new technologies, their data environments grow more complex. Securing data shouldn’t be just a checkbox or a one-time effort — instead, it’s an ongoing commitment. Organizations that use modern data security solutions to understand, control, and monitor their data continuously are set to fulfill Sir Walter Raleigh’s prophecy — only this time, in 2025, navigating the sea of data.
About the Author
Yoav Regev is CEO and Co-Founder of Sentra. He has over two decades of experience in the world of cybersecurity, cloud, big data, and machine learning. He was the Head of Cyber Department (Colonel) in the Israeli Military Intelligence (Unit 8200) for nearly 25 years. Reflecting on this experience, it was clear to him that sensitive data had become the most important asset in the world. In the private sector, enterprises that were leveraging data to generate new insights, develop new products, and provide better experiences, were separating themselves from the competition. As data becomes more valuable, it becomes a bigger target, and as the amount of sensitive data grows, so does the importance of finding the most effective way to secure it. That’s why he co-founded Sentra, together with accomplished co-founders, Asaf Kochan, Ron Reiter, and Yair Cohen. Yoav can be reached online at our company website www.sentra.io
