Data Security Driven by Need, Not Compliance

Many government and industry oversight committees have attempted to encourage the further proliferation and adoption of data security solutions by establishing regulations outlining specific measures that must be met by organizations. By providing enterprises with a financial motivation for increasing data security through penalties and fines, these committee members believed they could increase the overall quality of cybersecurity. These efforts have been somewhat successful in the past. For instance, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's Omnibus Rule, which assesses significant fines to violators, has sent many healthcare organizations scrambling to shore up their defenses. However, enterprises are increasingly realizing the importance of data security for its own sake and not to simply meet some measure of compliance.

A survey of eCommerce merchants released by payment management company CyberSource found that only 26 percent of respondents cited avoiding penalties resulting from noncompliance as their primary motivator for pursuing data security solutions. Meanwhile, 70 percent of those vendors who participated in the study identified their desire to protect their brand image as the main driver for improving their network and data security defenses to keep hackers out of their systems.

"A breach has serious consequences for nearly every division of an ecommerce merchant's organization," said CyberSource director Dayna Ford. "But by far the most damaging impact is to the company's brand, affecting revenue, customer loyalty, and even stock valuation. Knowledge of this phenomenon is now widespread, so we're not surprised at the survey finding that puts brand integrity as the most important rationale for payment security investment."

For full coverage beyond compliance, businesses should utilize a solution that provides the tools to encrypt data both at rest and while in transit. This is especially important for businesses deploying cloud services, as their information will be more mobile than if they were using an on-premises environment only.