Data breaches keep the minds of many business owners constantly preoccupied. And data warehouses can be subjected to breaches as well. So, as a central repository that holds critical information for business intelligence, it must be protected best.
Hence, implementing robust security measures is essential for those who have data warehouses. And in this article, S-Pro will discuss how to do it.
Why Data Warehouse Security Matters
A data warehouse breach can be a crippling blow to your organization. Despite the illusion of the pure technicality of the information in your warehouse, it still can and will attract fraudulent activities.
Because this information is still valuable, and if you do not do everything in your power to protect it, the outcome might be devastating. Some consequences might include, but are not limited to:
- Financial Losses: a data breach is always associated with financial losses. First come regulatory fines for non-compliance with data protection laws, and those can be hefty. Of course, the lawsuits from those the data breach affected will also take a blow. And you still have to fix the problem, so there will be a need to pay for technical services as well.
- Reputational Damage: many companies stop functioning after losing public trust. And having a data breach on your hands is a sure way to lose such trust. People will always ask themselves whether they are at risk when using your services or software if you have wronged them once. This damage can be fatal for your business, so it’s better to tackle the issue before it arises.
- Regulatory Compliance Issues: as we established previously, compliance is important. If you ignore security, data breaches can put your organization out of compliance with regulations like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) depending on the type of your business. Again, failing to comply with these will result in more fines and reputational losses, and in some extreme cases might even lead to authorities shutting down your business.
Best Practices for Data Protection
Of course, there are multiple different practices to secure your data warehouse. In this article, we will only cover some of them, but there are others available, and if you wish to know more about them, contact professionals directly.
Data Classification and Access Controls
Not all data in your warehouse has the same value. So, you should do your best to identify and categorize data based on its level of sensitivity. Doing this can prioritize security measures and ensure stricter controls for highly sensitive information.
Also, you can implement the “least privilege” principle. In short, it argues that your users should only access the data critical for their operations. Hence, you can implement role-based access control and secure yourself from manual mistakes and damage in case of a compromised account.
Don’t forget about the classics, too. Multi-factor authentication can help your business withstand most of the attacks. A simple additional verification step won’t hurt anyone but will significantly strengthen your login security.
Data Encryption
Essentially, encryption scrambles data, making it unreadable without a decryption key. You can encrypt your data warehouse at rest (when stored) and in transit (when moving between systems) using industry-standard algorithms like AES-256.
However, it will be important to manage the encryption keys. They are the most crucial part of this type of data protection technique, so you will need to implement key management practices that will allow you to be in control at all times. To do this, you might implement secure key storage, strong key rotation policies, and enable access for authorized personnel only.
Activity Monitoring and Auditing
For this practice, maintain real-time monitoring of user activity within the data warehouse. To do so, record all user access attempts, data modifications, and other relevant actions within the data warehouse. Keeping audit logs like these might provide a vital trail for investigation and ensure accountability for user actions.
It’s important because this technique aims to allow you to detect suspicious behavior and potential breaches early on.
These practices can help you significantly strengthen your data warehouse security posture and minimize the risk of a breach. However, this is not all you might want to know about data security. To learn more, you should contact experts such as S-Pro or other software development companies with vast experience in data warehouse security.
