5 Ways an Organization Can Manage its Big Data Security

Big data security is a constant concern for organizations because a single attack might leave your big data deployment vulnerable to ransom demands.

Big data exhibits the 4 V's (volume, variety, velocity, veracity). Big data applications are innumerable, ranging from banking, healthcare, insurance, pension, and governmental proceedings, due to its numerous advantages. Every chunk of data in an organization is crucial, and it is important to manage it securely. Big data security is one of the major concerns faced by any sector today, leading organizations into using more scalable tools to meet the security constraints.

Why Organizations Should Care About Big Data Security?

Big data technology ingests large chunks of data, which involves significant risk to database security as containing such large volumes of critical data can result in a data breach. These data breaches may involve useful information such as credit card details, bank details, and various other personal information, a theft of which may cause devastating consequences. These data breaches may lead end users into distrusting their organizations. This highlights the need for more scalable big data tools, which will reduce these data thefts. The purpose of big data security is to build a firewall for unauthorized users, keep strong user-authentication, and ensure end-user training. Additionally, it aims at providing intrusion protection systems and intrusion detection systems, which operate at all data stages. The list below highlights ways that organizations can use with big data to resolve issues regarding security:

Secure Distributed Computing Frameworks

Distributed computing frameworks such as Spark, Hadoop, MPI have a considerable risk of data leakage. Additionally, they have a chance of being associated with untrusted mappers. Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recommends companies to use authentication methods and establish trust. Furthermore, de-identification must be inculcated to ensure privacy constraints are met. Then, organizations must validate access to files and ensure that sensitive data is not leaked by any means. Implementing access management solutions can help solve the aforementioned issues while also ensuring easy access for authorized users. It enables organizations to manage user access and permissions, thereby reducing the chances of data breaches.

Secure Data Storage 

Data must be stored in a secure way to enhance big data security. To secure data storage, a technique called secure untrusted data repository (SUNDR) must be employed to monitor unauthorized alterations from third party agents.

Protect Your Data 

While organizations assimilate large chunks of data to improve their services, collecting data is a difficult and expensive task. To secure your data, organizations must use firewall security, intrusion detection and prevention tools, scanning tools, and demand validation for all access to data.

Do Not Miss Audits 

Auditing is a must with big data security, and it is vital to maintain the audit data separately for future reference. Post any attack, organizations must conduct a complete audit to check whether operations are working fine. Technologies like Apache Oozie can help to understand big data clusters better.

Secure Hardware and Software Configurations 

Hardware or software malfunction is one of the important causes of data loss in any organization. Hence, it is essential that organizations manage hardware and software configurations by ensuring it is updated regularly. Preventing data breaches is one of the processes that organizations are inculcating in their culture with scalable big data analytical tools. Organizations must secure their big data platforms from threats to serve their business without interruption for years.