Securing and protecting enterprise data is at the center of the modern security plan. There are many considerations for organizations that aim to move critical workloads and data stores to the cloud, and understanding how business-critical data will be accessed, stored and secured is a paramount concern.

Organizations are also facing significant increases in regulations around data classification and data privacy. Regulators enforcing the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act are issuing fines, and courts are issuing decisions. The scope of how data privacy is regulated (and the impact that will have on organizations big and small) will add complexity to a crowded regulatory framework.

In an exclusive research study conducted for IBM, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) recently polled over 200 technical leaders and practitioners from organizations of 500 employees or more. They represented industries from 10 different verticals, providing a cross-section of organizations impacted by data privacy and security in different ways.

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Some key takeaways from the study include:

• Data Security: Nearly all of those surveyed (95.1%) indicated that data security is a critical or very important factor in their organization, and 74% have integrated data security and privacy as part of their organization’s overall security strategy.
• Data Privacy: 82% of those surveyed are currently evaluating data privacy solutions, and almost three-quarters (74%) believe that their strategy regarding data privacy is a major differentiator in the marketplace.
• Zero Trust: 73% of organizations are investigating or planning to launch a zero trust project. Of that group, nearly all (94%) stated that data privacy is a primary driver for starting their zero trust project. Also, 96% are looking for a zero trust vendor with a complete, comprehensive solution, and 94% believe it is important to work with an experienced, established zero trust leader.
• Security Tools: 64% report that two or more of their tools are at least somewhat redundant, and 75% currently use three or more tools to secure their hybrid multicloud environments.
• Security Silos: While 56% of respondents said that they are working to break down barriers between their security teams and other divisions within the organization, 36% indicated that security teams sometimes, rarely or never work with other technical teams for problem resolution.

As organizations turn to security vendors to understand data privacy regulations and for guidance on their zero trust projects and solutions, it is critical for vendors to understand the challenges facing the enterprise and how they can best provide solutions and tools to address those challenges. The enterprise is looking to experienced vendors with a proven track record of zero trust implementations that are able to address and assist with all aspects of a zero trust project, instead of one-off features.

IBM is a leader in zero trust, and its data security solutions are unmatched in the industry. With IBM Security Guardium Insights, organizations can adapt and scale as their hybrid cloud environments evolve, centralizing data security and privacy management, reducing compliance efforts and understanding user access and permissions across multiple data and infrastructure sources to support a zero trust approach.

For more information about this survey and Guardium Insights, visit www.ibm.com/products/guardium-insights to learn about the IBM approach to data security and privacy, as well as its best-in-class zero trust solution. To learn more about EMA’s findings in this survey, register for the interactive report eBook.