2023 just started and the headlines are already filled with high-profile data breach cases.

On January 5, Twitter (News - Alert) supposedly experienced a new data breach that exposed the data of 200 million users. Information such as emails, names, and usernames were stolen after the hackers exploited a zero-day flaw in late December.

Even though the vulnerability that enabled hackers to obtain data was patched in January, threat actors are still selling the information on hacking forums for no more than $2.

On January 18, PayPal (News - Alert) revealed to its customers that the company suffered a data breach in which the sensitive information of thousands of users was jeopardized.

The Compromised data includes names, social security numbers, email addresses, billing addresses, individual tax identification numbers, and dates of birth.

On January 5, T-Mobile discovered yet another data breach that had been occuring for over a month before its security team uncovered the hacking activity.

This latest security incident compromised the information of 37 million users — including names, birthdays, and home addresses.

The incident happened due to an Application Programming Interface (API) vulnerability that allowed illicit access to hackers without them having any credentials to log into the system.

Protecting customer data nowadays is getting more and more challenging.

It includes having layered security that consists of multiple versatile tools that can find any possible flaws before the hackers can, but also management systems that aid the control over and protection of large volumes of critical information.

How to guard this information and manage data that is being collected, generated, and used within the infrastructure of a business?

Which features should you look for in a suitable data management solution that safeguards company information?

All Data Kept in One Place

Data coming from multiple sources should be compiled into a single directory to make for more effective management.

By having all of the data that is at the disposal of the corporation in one place, they can break down siloed information and work with data that is categorized and visible.

As a result, the teams within the company have greater:

• Access to the right data for employees that need high-quality information (e.g. for analysis)
• Control over the information since the single dashboard provides a map that showcases where the files are placed within the architecture
• Trust in the system that is collecting data as well as sensitive information of the users

Modern platforms use automation to gather data from versatile tools in a single place — regardless of the formation in which they've been initially saved.

Cleaning Up the Data

When the data is combined from versatile sources, this opens another can of worms — the information can be duplicated, incorrectly labelled, or saved in the wrong format.

In other words, the data has to be filtered and only quality information left within the management system.

To keep the data clean:

• Remove records that are not accurate
• Detect grammatical and spelling errors
• Identifying corrupt data

At the end of this process, you’re left with data that is high-quality and doesn’t have missing values, contain nonsensical information, or the wrong format.

Because of large volumes of records that have to be accounted for, companies use data management tools that automatically do a cleanse before they’re presented and catalogued in the dashboard.

Compliance With Data Policies and Regulations

As the company manages the data (cleans, categorizes, analyzes, uses it to create more data, etc.), the information has to comply with the latest regulation and policies.

This can get increasingly complex for companies that have users from all over the globe. Different countries have different data privacy laws and policies that govern how the information has to be properly handled.

One of them is the data protection law known as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), which provides rules on how to manage data privacy for European citizens.

Therefore, the best data management solution should do more than catalogue the records coming from various software that the company uses for work.

The information that is used and created has to adhere to the latest policies and regulations.

The latest data management solution also automates compliance.

User-Friendly Data Management Solution

Easily operated data management options — even by team members that aren’t tech savvy — are essential considering the high quantity of information that is circulating within the system.

Intuitive and easy-to-use platforms facilitate management.

That is, the interface should be straightforward enough for employees who aren’t data privacy experts to differentiate and identify between information that is corporate and personal.

It should give them access to quality information that is catalogued and that aligns with the latest policies and regulations.

Once again, the single dashboard gives such visibility to the data from a single platform.

It All Comes Down to Preserving Customer Data

Besides having sound and comprehensive security that guards the physical and virtual infrastructure of a company, it’s also essential to how the data is managed within the system to prevent major breaches.

Proper data management solutions protect users who trust companies with their social security numbers, birth dates, IDs, and emails.

They consider that it’s a given that the information they provide to a business is going to be well managed and protected by the company — especially to large companies that have more funds to allocate towards security such as PayPal and T-Mobile (News - Alert).

Some essential features that every solution for managing information within the company must have include a user-friendly interface, compliance with privacy laws and policies, and keeping the data clean.

Most importantly, the data should be managed from a single dashboard that unifies the information — giving a birdseye view of the state of records in a user-friendly interface that every team member can understand with a glance.