News
 Top
Tips: Keeping Your Databases Safe and Secure
By
Sharon Goldman, executive editor, DMNews
As data collection
becomes increasingly complex, sophisticated and
essential for marketers, protecting the security of
those databases is more important than ever. We
asked several top experts to offer their best tips
for how marketers can make sure their data stays
safe.
Plan to fail
Assume a security breach will occur at some point,
and ensure you've got a comprehensive incidence
response plan in place. Capturing and retaining all
traffic stored in your database for historical
reporting and forensic investigation is a critical
component of this plan. It helps to ensure that when
your database is compromised, you're able to quickly
and effectively uncover the source of the problem
and resolve it.
--Alan Hall, Marketing Director,
Solera Networks
Develop sound security policies
Most data security issues stem from poor policies
and standards that lead to investment in poor
technical solutions. It's the classic ‘garbage in,
garbage out' scenario. Before implementing security
solutions, companies should consult with key
stakeholders, including marketing professionals, who
have sensitive information assets to protect.
Marketers can assist IT in accurately identifying,
categorizing, and protecting key marketing databases
in accordance with sound information security
policy. Remember, the effectiveness of a security
solution depends largely on the strength of the
policy governance that guided the selection and
implementation.
--Craig Robinson, Chief Operating Officer,
GlobalSCAPE
Know your data's sensitivity level
Databases and data management solutions tend to
gravitate towards collecting all the data elements
anyone will ever need to use. Quite often, there are
extremely sensitive data elements like account
numbers that are not needed by many of the data
users. The sensitive data elements drive very strict
security requirements that will limit the business
use of the data. By stripping out seldom- used
sensitive data in files or databases, you can
increase the availability of data to the business
with lower security risks and expense.
--Frank Caserta, Chief Security Officer, Acxiom
Corporation
Plan your audit process carefully
When auditing your database, make sure your audit
process is independent of the system being audited.
Otherwise, it's like the fox watching the henhouse.
Also, the audit trail should contain appropriate
detail. That's a “duh” thing, but a lot of people
don't have heavy auditing turned on. You really want
to catch that appropriate detail, so you really need
to do heavy logging. If you are going to do it, you
need it on an external system as well. Finally,
there is scope. What people don't realize is
databases have very complex architectures today, and
to get an understanding, you need to be looking at
the entire data architecture, which means having a
sufficient audit trail where you're pulling in all
the critical pieces.
--Brian Contos, Chief Security Strategist, Imperva
---Source: DMNews June 1, 2009 (www.dmnews.com).
Sharon Goldman is the executive editor at DMNews.
Reach her at sharon.goldman@dmnews.com
|
|
|
Melissa Data
|
 |
| Enhance your
website, software or database with
easy-to-integrate data quality programming tools
and web services. |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Save money on postage using leading
mail preparation software and other
direct marketing products. |
|
|
|
|
 |
Update & standardize addresses and
find out more about contacts in your
database.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Find new customers perfect for your
business with our online and
specialty mailing lists.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Locate the business information you
need such as ZIP Codes, address
verification, maps.
|
|
|
|
|
Facebook
Twitter
