5 Gartner Tips for Balancing Security and Business Goals
Nowadays, cybersecurity is more than just a technical issue; it has become a strategic element for companies. However, finding the right balance between protecting data and leveraging it to achieve business goals remains a significant challenge.
According to Gartner, only 14% of security and risk management leaders successfully strike this balance. Meanwhile, 35% of companies focus on protecting their data assets, and 21% use them to drive their business forward. This disparity highlights a worrying issue: most organizations fail to extract value from their data without compromising security.
Companies focusing solely on data protection risk becoming rigid and less competitive, as limiting access can hinder innovation and slow decision-making. On the other hand, organizations prioritizing data use without implementing adequate controls expose themselves to critical risks, such as data breaches, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties.
It is crucial to view cybersecurity as an enabler of business strategy rather than an obstacle. This approach allows a company to harness the value of its data while staying protected and future-proof. It means integrating security into business goals right from the start. With this in mind, Gartner offers several recommendations to help achieve the right balance, seeking to ensure that protection enhances rather than hinders innovation:
1. Reduce Friction in Data Governance
This involves establishing co-created processes for data security policies and standards by engaging multiple departments. This ensures that policies are practical, understandable, and aligned with business needs.
By reducing friction, organizations can adopt a proactive and collaborative decision-making approach that keeps business objectives in focus.
2. Align Governance with Data Security
While data security protects against unauthorized access, use, modification, or disclosure, governance ensures proper storage, access, and use. Aligning the two requires close collaboration between cybersecurity teams and business units, identifying overlaps and vulnerabilities that might go unnoticed if teams work in isolation.
3. Define Non-Negotiable Security Requirements
Outlining non-negotiable security requirements means identifying the essential measures that must always be met to ensure data protection and operational continuity.
These requirements include data confidentiality and availability, ensuring that information is only accessible to authorized personnel, cannot be modified without consent, and is always available when needed. This minimizes the risk of breaches and penalties while guaranteeing regulatory compliance and business stability.
4. Set Boundaries for Generative AI
The integration of new technologies like generative AI presents security challenges. To balance innovation with data protection, it is essential to define clear parameters beforehand.
These include monitoring AI-generated outputs, creating policies that prohibit using sensitive data in AI without encryption or anonymization, responsibly using internal models, preventing bias and misinformation, and protecting against leaks and attacks.
Once this strategy is in place, implementing technologies that enhance sensitive data security on devices can help maintain control and protection at all times. These solutions allow more efficient risk management without compromising data integrity or value.
5. Foster Collaboration with Data and Analytics Teams
Data security cannot be the sole responsibility of the cybersecurity team. Departments that work directly with data must be involved throughout the process, as this integrates security policies seamlessly into daily operations.
Balancing data security with business objectives is difficult, but integrating cybersecurity as a strategic enabler is crucial to delivering strong protection without compromising long-term business agility.
