Let's unpack the word of data privacy first
Today, forward-thinking enterprises around the world are starting to see the potential for data privacy to boost their bottom line. Not only by investing in future-proof security solutions that can handle ever-tighter regulations, but by looking beyond security problems and seeing a strategic advantage in data privacy itself. Business leaders are changing their mindset around data security in order to leverage its business benefits.
Research suggests that by 2023, 65% of the world’s population will be covered by data privacy regulation. Since 2017 we’ve already seen the introduction of new regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act. Further regulations are sure to follow.
For that reason, cybersecurity and data privacy are now part of the conversation at board level; not only due to the negative impact of high-profile, costly and self-destructive security breaches; and not just because of the associated financial penalties for non-compliance; data privacy is now more than a ‘must-do’ mandate – it’s become a key driver of business growth.
In consumer markets, data policies are starting to have a powerful influence on consumer choice. In fact, studies reveal that 50% of customers switch companies based on data policies or data sharing practices. At the same time, 77% of IT professionals say they don’t have an enterprise-wide cybersecurity response plan. As a result, businesses are starting to increase their privacy spend to ensure watertight compliance and reassure customers that their data is safe.
We live in a world of ‘Big Data’
Almost three quarters of business leaders say they increased consumer data collection in the last year. So with increasing pressure from regulators and consumers, businesses need to review how they collect, use, store, and dispose of personal information, and how they manage data privacy.
But compliance can be complex, and the task of organizing and implementing data protection across multiple software platforms and systems can be overwhelming. That’s where data masking can help.
For many enterprises, most sensitive data exists in non-production environments as part of development and testing. Realistic data is essential for things like user training, sales demos, and software testing – but using actual data is an obvious security risk. Data masking is a way of generating artificial yet realistic organizational data whilst maintaining usability.
Whilst there are many solutions on the market for masking structured (quantitative) data, most businesses also hold huge volumes of unstructured (qualitative data) in files like Word documents and images. That’s why ABMartin created UMask, the first software solution to mask unstructured data, protect sensitive data, and complement structured data privacy solutions.
With over 100 years combined experience in data privacy
ABMartin’s mission is to help businesses to comply with data privacy regulations, reduce the likelihood of a data breach, and add business value on top of what they already do.
Built around a team of data privacy experts with a shared background in IBM's Optim™ suite of information management solutions, ABMartin is a trusted IBM Partner, with over 200 successful implementations.
And our reach extends way beyond implementation of data masking solutions, with a full suite of solutions tailored to specific industry and business needs.
- Data Privacy Roadmapping: The steps you need to stay safe and compliant.
- Design & Implementation: A data masking solution made for your IT functionality.
- Training & Enablement: Upskill your team for a long term data privacy solution.
- Integrated Data Privacy: Fully integrate structured and unstructured data masking.
Taking a collaborative approach to your specific data privacy needs, our consultants work to understand your challenges before helping to build the right solution for your business. That’s why we offer a variety of customizable data privacy solutions:
- Complete Data Management: Testing, archiving, and application retirement alongside data privacy for structured and unstructured data, virtualization, fabrication, training, installation, and fast-start services.
- IBM Data Management Solutions: Extensive capabilities to manage data across its lifetime by effectively creating right-sized subsets of data that have only de-identified data and by managing the overall growth of production databases by archiving stale/old data.
- BigID Solutions: In partnership, we strategically align on data privacy solutions. BigID is a leader in data discovery and intelligence for data privacy, security and governance.
- Unstructured Data Masking: UMask software secures your data through data masking and obfuscation, replacing the original values of your sensitive data with fictitious, yet contextually accurate alternatives.
- Dynamic Masking: Replacing real values in unstructured data with fictitious but realistic values, Dynamic Masking gives you the same look and feel, plus you can personalize de-identification and masking on the fly via user permissions.
Boost Your Bottom Line With Data Privacy
A compliant company builds trust in its clients and customers, and with that trust comes loyalty and repeat business. At the same time, data security helps you build a reputation for reliability. Not only that, taking steps to secure your organization’s data privacy gives you peace of mind over compliance, and the confidence to do more with your data such as testing, analysis, and development.
Ready to get serious about data privacy and security? Talk to the ABMartin team today.
