Chances are, your business has data that you’d like to keep private. It might be financial information, a customer database, or maybe something as simple as a vendor list. Leaks of that data could cause your business big problems, opening you up to lawsuits or a damaged reputation.

So how can you avoid data leaks and keep your data under control?

A recent LinkedIn survey asked business leaders what their biggest concern was in regards to keeping their data private.

Data privacy is a top priority for us as well and the results of LinkedIn’s poll match what we’ve heard from our customers. We address those concerns by using the Datapeers application suite.

Data everywhere

Whenever there’s a data leak in the news, it’s common to find out after the fact that the leaked data was from a copy of database on a file server or an employee’s computer. While the production database might have effective safeguards in place to prevent a breach, copies of that same database might be lying in the open.

There are many valid reasons to make a copy of a database: to populate test and development environments, to setup user training, or to provide data to third-parties like law enforcement or auditors.

It’s difficult to keep track of that data though. And all too often, these copies contain sensitive information, whether it’s needed or not. This is where using Datapeers really helps keep copies of data under control.

When making copies of databases, Datapeers can not only filter out just the data subset needed for the particular project, but can also de-identify sensitive data so that testing and other activities aren’t impacted, but a leak of the copied database wouldn’t contain proprietary or confidential information like customer names or financial account numbers. So if you need to provide a copy of a database to an external developer to troubleshoot an application bug, you can do so without having to worry about handing your critical data over.

On top of providing more secure database copies, Datapeers keeps detailed audit information about the copies you make with it. So you’l know who made each copy and what data was included in that copy, allowing you to keep better track of your sensitive data. This, in turn, helps prevent leaks by both internal and external data breaches, while simultaneously addressing compliancy requirements like PCI-DSS.

Paired with good policies and procedures, Datapeers can be a valuable component in building a well-rounded data security plan. The secure, documented copies it creates help take out a lot of the stress and worry that surround data privacy.

Poll data: LinkedIn