Where's Your Data? Eight Keys to Data Security In (and out of) The Cloud

Data security, hacking, breaches, spying, and more have stolen the headlines this year. The risk is high for companies of all sizes, and especially for systems like Microsoft Dynamics ERP that contain sensitive financial information. In today's cloud-enabled and hyper-connected world, organizations must plan their systems management with security and risk-mitigation in mind.

While there is no one-size-fits-all plan, executives and IT professionals should embrace several key IT practices, document security policies, and ensure that their entire information architecture - cloud, on-premise, and hybrid - is in line with a unified plan.

Here are eight key components of any good data security plan in today's IT climate:

1. Classification of Critical Assets

Remember the Target consumer credit card breach and the headlines that followed? In this case, Target housed credit card data on servers that were accessible by an HVAC contractor with  compromised credentials. This instance demonstrates the importance of the first step of any data security plan: a review of data, systems and cyber assets to classify these according to their risk, sensitivity, and compliance requirements.  Once systems and data are classified, an organization can create a plan to protect these assets. They can also identify how and where it is most appropriate to access and store them.  Most cloud solution providers will recommend storing low or medium business impact data or systems in public cloud environments like Microsoft Azure, but should place all high business impact systems and sensitive data in single-tenant private cloud environments, and implement the appropriate security protocols surrounding those environments.

2. Physical Security

Securing your environment includes the real world, because if someone has physical access to your data, it is no ...