Data Classification and Sensitivity Levels: What, How, When

Businesses of the modern world deal with an obnoxious amount of data. This data can contain anything under the sun, including private medical information to calendar invites for a get together. This can pose a challenge when it comes to keeping sensitive information safe and compliant with federal regulations.

LINKS:
____________________________________________

____________________________________________

It is important that you develop a system to organize sensitive data and low-priority data. This classification can help you sort which sensitive information was compromised in a data breach. After all, it is only a matter of time before a business endures a breach.

What is data classification? It’s the process of sorting data into various categories. This sorting process is done for the purpose of easier management, security, and storage. It is up to the discretion of each organization to create the different categories. Once you make your own category criteria, you can tag the data to make it searchable and trackable.

Policies regarding data classification can help you In three ways. First, it can help you develop a risk management strategy. Policies are also useful when trying to trace what was compromised in a breach and retrieve data files as needed.

Second, using the classification system can also improve the efficiency of the organization. For example, there will be less of a chance of creating duplicates of the data. In turn, the data retrieval process will be shorter.
And third, data classification is one of the best tools you can use for regulatory compliance

Now that you have a better understanding of what data classification is and the benefits, let’s talk about how it’s accomplished.

Many companies organize their data by sensitivity. Sensitivity levels will help you understand which sets of data need extra protection against hackers.

Organizing data by sensitivity levels will help you understand where to focus your risk mitigation efforts. Levels range from high to medium to low, which help users understand how damaging it would be if the data were to become lost or stolen. In other words, the more sensitive the data, the more protection it needs.

High sensitivity is the category for restricted data. If this information was compromised, lost, or destroyed, it would have a massive negative impact on your organization. Strict controls on this type of highly sensitive information helps protect organizations against theft. Examples of this type of highly sensitive data include… Financial records, such as credit card numbers… Medical records, including protected health information (PHI)... Employee records, including personally identifiable information like Social Security numbers… and authentication data, such as login credentials.

Private data would fall under the medium sensitivity level. This type of data is for internal use only. However, if hackers were to get their hands on the information, the business would face consequences. Examples of medium sensitivity data include… Internal emails or documents that don’t contain confidential data… Supplier contracts… and IT service management or telecommunication information.

Low sensitivity data is the classification used for public data. This is information anyone can use and does not require confidentiality or substantial protections. With that said, you may want to palace some controls to protect against damages. Examples of low sensitivity data include… Public web pages, such as job postings, blog posts, etc…. Press releases… and employee directory.

#dataclassification #datasensitivity

[ramalavishnupriya]

I hvae question for example, account current balance this column description, so my i question is it highr risk or medium or low ? explain it please form my underdstanding.