How to Govern All of Your Critical Information with One Simple Tool

Why is data governance important for your organization? 

As the rates of ransomware attacks and data breach attempts escalate rapidly and put companies’ assets at risk, implementing a concrete and reliable data governance framework should be your organization’s first step in strengthening your Information Security (InfoSec) configuration.

Data governance begins with understanding where your information resides

To establish robust InfoSec practices and a data governance framework, understanding your cloud information and what information is critical to your organization is crucial. This includes analyzing your cloud environment to determine:

• what information exists 
• where it resides 
• who has access to it  

1. Autonomously map and categorize information across your cloud environment 

To give companies such an understanding, Cognni’s AI is able to autonomously map cloud environments, making it easy for your InfoSec team to monitor critical information, detect potential security incidents, and avoid unwanted information exposure. These are all requirements for an effective data governance framework.

Information overload

While your InfoSec team is tasked with finding, labeling, and monitoring your organization’s information  with the sheer amount of information created, shared, and stored across your cloud environment on a daily basis, there’s no chance that your team has the capacity to handle this load. Furthermore, once discovered, determining the importance of critical information based on its contents, context, and associated user activities is a heavily nuanced process, which InfoSec teams don’t have the time and resources to complete.

• For example: A file containing PII may be a list of customers or an employment contract, both of which can serve several purposes throughout your organization and its importance varies depending on department, access authorization, and context.

More than regulated requirements

To some it may be enough to know that a file contains regulated information. Cognni recognizes that there is hierarchy when it comes to files and folders. With Cognni’s ability to autonomously map and categorize critical information, your InfoSec team gains a much needed and nuanced understanding of your organization’s information assets, and in turn, the platform enables the information to be  governed properly.

2. Decrease reliance on flawed user labeling techniques

Proper data governance is most effective when your critical information is accurately labeled by information category. Labeling files enables you to manage user interaction with critical information and to remain compliant with privacy laws. However, if you’ve ever tried labeling all your files manually using information discovery tools, you’ll know the real challenges that this task presents to your team.

Users in your organization will inevitably mislabel files, forget to label files entirely, or may act maliciously when exposed to critical information. This can put your organization’s information assets in jeopardy. Moreover, this inevitably causes a backlog of unlabeled files.

Addressing unlabeled files with manual labeling or semi-automatic labeling tools like Microsoft’s Information Protection (MIP) only further highlights the gaps between effort and accuracy.

• Users can label more accurately, but this exposes your company information to potential malpractice and unwanted data exposure.

• MIP can label 1000′s of files, but its focus on regulated information and information recognition limitations leaves the rest of your information unprotected and vulnerable.

To overcome this obstacle, Cognni seamlessly integrates with MIP to automate its labeling capabilities and expand its scope to cover more than 70 information categories. This eliminates risks posed by manual labeling and ensures that all of your critical information is being properly labeled, optimizing your data governance.

Expand your governance reach

Today, the existing gaps in your InfoSec configuration  undermine the effectiveness of any security and governance policies you’ve implemented thus far. However, Cognni’s AI enables you to autonomously understand your information from a whole new perspective, providing the scope necessary to properly map and categorize your organization’s most critical assets. Only once you’ve established this foundation can you begin to effectively govern ALL of your information.