Data Privacy Day 2023 commentaries
By Equinix
In today’s era, with companies undergoing a rapid digital transformation, data privacy compliance has emerged as an important concern driving crucial business decisions. As companies expand their digital footprints and massive amounts of data are being generated and transferred globally, cybersecurity vulnerabilities continue to upsurge.
The Data Privacy Day is a reminder for organizations to evaluate their cyber risks and ensure strong data privacy and security policies and practices are in place, but also in such a way that will not impede innovation within the digital economy. It is a balancing act, and necessitates risk assessment. Due to the growing complexity of data flows, enterprises must evolve previous ways of securing data in transit and at rest to a posture of constant governance where all data is protected.
Data privacy policies play a vital role of all business strategies, regardless the size of the company. It is not only organizations which have evolved in terms of digital adoption, but hackers also have evolved the way they perform cybercrimes. To address external security threats, organizations must deploy and frequently update the basic processes such as two-factor authentication, firewalls and anti-malware solutions.
Additionally, they can also implement extra advanced strategies such as Trusted Platform Module (TPM) capabilities and adopting Zero Trust architecture. Another crucial step towards comprehensive data privacy compliance is to be aware of which data is stored and exactly where. The human factor is often the most vulnerable in the data protection chain and organizations need to ensure employees are well-versed with the compliance regulations and best security practices by providing them with both training and proper guidelines for those who come into contact with the most sensitive data types, whether personal data or not.
At Equinix, security and privacy has always been at paramount. With strongly adhering to data privacy and cybersecurity policies and practices, we are uniquely positioned to support data privacy compliance requirements of many of the largest enterprises in the world through cloud adjacency. Through our Equinix Privacy Office, we proactively manage our own compliance with applicable new and evolving data privacy laws and seek to assist customers to do the same.
By Chua Chee Pin, Area VP at Commvault
“Data Privacy Day falls on January 28 every year. It is a day to create awareness about the importance of data privacy across the world, but one day does not feel like enough for such an important event. As we mark Data Privacy Day this year, we must also acknowledge that our digital footprint will continue to grow and increase in value. We cannot underestimate the importance of backing up our data on all fronts — both for businesses and in our personal lives. At the end of the day, the question is no longer, ‘How can I keep from getting hacked?’ but rather ‘When will I be hacked and what can I do to avoid, or at least minimise the damage from such an attack?’. We need to do more than just put technologies and processes in place to ward off attacks and understand that it is everyone’s responsibility when it comes to practicing good digital habits.”
