If you grew up on Saturday morning cartoons, you probably worried about the Bermuda Triangle, piranhas in the tub and quicksand.

It didn’t matter where you lived. One second, you’re hiking in the park behind your house, and the next you’re sinking like Indiana Jones.

To make a massive jump, this is similar to the data security situation many organizations face today. Maybe you’re a new company selling widgets online or offering the best interest rates. Oh look, your first customers!

Suddenly, you’re flooded with data. You have financial transactions, mothers’ maiden names, passwords, usernames, social security numbers, etc.

All you wanted was to sell a useful product. You wanted to help people improve their finances or deliver clean energy. But there you are, sinking into the quicksand of regulatory requirements, customer demands for greater data privacy and the risk of a data breach. What can you do?

Surely, you’ve considered data security solutions. You have point tools to encrypt, monitor and discover where sensitive data lives. But everyone, every organization is creating new data at faster and faster rates every day. We create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data daily. Put another way, that is 270 billion minutes of YouTube videos every day. So ask yourself — are your data security tools capable of protecting your growing lakes of data?

Well, like quicksand in cartoons, there are three ways to evaluate and find a solution: be adaptive, connected and intelligent.

Adapt to the Environment Around You (Or the One You’ve Created for Your Data)

You’re sinking! What do you do? Well, firstly, you need to adapt to the situation. Stop struggling. Stop flailing. You’ll only sink quicker.

Data security is similar. The more you add point solutions to solve the problems of the day, the more you’ll have to untangle them when your cloud environment changes. If sensitive data is suddenly housed elsewhere, you may need to add more tools or redeploy and reconfigure existing ones. It wastes time, and by that point, you’ll never get to the Lost Ark first … that is, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle while preparing for the future.

Organizations that adapt will reap the benefits of saving time and resources. To adapt, they need technologies to support both their current and future needs. And those technologies must do two things. First, free analysts to focus on continuous data security. Going forward, we have to focus less on updates and reconfiguration. Second, those technologies need to be open-sourced and containerized. IBM Security Guardium is built on modern, flexible architecture to help you do just these things.

Connect to Critical Tools (And Share Data Security Responsibilities)

Alright, you’ve adapted to the situation. Now you need to get out of the quicksand. Luckily, there’s a gnarled old tree root snaking off to your left. Grab on! You’ve stopped sinking, and now you can stop panicking and consider your options.

This is the equivalent of connecting data security to your existing security and IT tools. You have plenty of those, right? But unfortunately, data security responsibilities today are often split across data security, compliance and security analyst teams. To solve that issue, you need to connect your various security and IT tools, from the SIEM tool to ticketing. IBM Security Guardium delivers quick and easy integration to help break down silos and respond to threats faster.

Use Actionable Intelligence (To Help You and Enrich Others)

You’ve been stranded on this root for a while. Time to use the trusty power of context. This root is obviously part of a tree. You look up and see a massive oak. Hanging from its sturdy, wizened branches are vines, one of them dangling a foot from your head. You reach up, grip the vine tightly and climb yourself out of the quicksand.

How does this translate to data security? Easy. An adaptive, connected solution is great at centralizing visibility and sharing data with other tools and teams. But without analytics, without context, that shared data is a stream of raw gibberish. IBM Security Guardium can wield advanced, sequential analytics and outlier detection.

Those teams will get a deeper understanding of data risks, which risks should be prioritized and which information should be shared. This helps to develop a quicker, more effective threat response, cuts alert fatigue and helps to slow security employee attrition by making data threat hunting a less tedious, manual process. Of course, you can’t automate your way out of regular quicksand, but it can streamline your data security processes.

Trust IBM Security Guardium to Keep You Out of the Quicksand

Now you’re bursting with new information on how to avoid the shifting sands of data sprawl. And IBM is committed to delivering adaptive, connected and intelligent solutions to help. Guardium is a key part of IBM Cloud Pak for Security. From data threats to data governance, IBM can help you stay secure, stay compliant and stay the course as your organization transforms for the future.

To learn more about how IBM Security Guardium delivers modern data security, watch this webinar replay.