The Hard Truths of Data Security in the Public Sector

The growth in volume of data being generated every year is staggering. One company has estimated that an organization’s amount of data will triple within five years, between on-premises, cloud and software-as-a-service locations. On top of that, sensitive data – whether personally identifiable information, financial, intellectual property, etc. – can be scattered throughout the data ocean.

In 2022, more than 200 government agencies, educational institutions and healthcare organizations were victims of ransomware attacks. And paying the ransom is no guarantee of recovering encrypted or exfiltrated data. A 2021 article reported that 92% of organizations that paid the ransom demand did not get their data back.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the steps needed to plan for explosive data growth, including the factors to consider and ways to prioritize
• Evaluate existing measures to protect sensitive data, including who has access to it and how they are using it
• Define the different cyber risks facing different data hosts (on-prem, cloud, SaaS) and the appropriate tools to address risks in each location