Why Is Anomaly Detection Vital to Data Security?

Data security remains a perpetual challenge. The volume of data created each day continues to rise along with the number of places it’s stored. As cloud data becomes more common as well, and it becomes more difficult to track location and access, understanding behavior becomes a key facet of securing the most critical corporate information.

This is the role of anomaly detection. Often called anomalous behavior detection, the technology is used to identify patterns in a given dataset that do not conform to expected actions or behaviors. Sometimes called outliers, anomalies can signify potential errors or unusual occurrences that may need further investigation.

Utilized across various domains, such as fraud detection, fault detection, system health monitoring, and event detection in sensor networks, anomaly detection has become indispensable in modern data-driven decision-making processes. By recognizing deviations from established norms, it provides crucial insights that help in identifying and addressing potential issues early on, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the data and the associated systems.

How Anomaly Detection Fits into Data Security

Anomaly detection can be used in data security to track potential security threats. By monitoring the behavior of users and data flows, security teams are able to detect potential attacks in progress more readily.

Anomaly detection integrates into a number of components in data security, including:

• Data Discovery: Identifying where sensitive data is stored across various cloud services.
• Classifying Sensitive Data: Automatically categorizing each dataset to determine the level of risk associated with it.
• Static Risk Analysis: Once data is detected and classified, data security posture management solutions assess the overall security posture as it relates to data access like permissions and encrypted storage.

Pulling those pieces together means that security teams can begin to track user behaviors and data traffic. Understanding where your critical data is stored and how users access it means that you can more likely track potential incidents.

Existing data protection solutions may track access attempts, but poorly correlate this information with actionable insights that differentiate between regular usage and misuse. Anomaly detection technology ensures that this difference is easily detected. With this ability, security teams can better protect sensitive information from malicious behavior regardless of the source.

Benefits Beyond Tighter Data Security

Anomaly detection offers a number of benefits beyond improved cyberattack prevention. From a business perspective, organizations gain the ability to mitigate the risk of potential security threats through early identification. They also can more readily meet compliance requirements like those of GDPR and HIPAA, which force specific data protections on organizations of all sizes. Automated anomaly detection also reduces the need for manual monitoring, leading to cost savings and more efficient operations.

From a technical perspective, the continuous monitoring of data access patterns allows for immediate detection of potential threats. Moreover, anomaly detection can be used to improve data classification and ensure that security measures are more precisely tailored to the most sensitive data. Organizations can also proactively address threats, thereby minimizing potential damage. Lastly, anomaly detection is readily integrated with data security posture management for a comprehensive security framework.

How Sotero Leverages Anomaly Detection

The Sotero data security platform uses advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze access records, determine standard utilization patterns for users, and detect variations in access times, locations, and data elements. Understanding these factors means that Sotero offers unparalleled visibility into how data flows within the organization and when users access it, use it, or transmit it.

That insight from the Sotero data security platform empowers security teams with insight into real user behaviors to better identify anomalous behavior and deploy defensive measures where needed. All data stores are protected by the Sotero data security platform, which includes in-depth records with full attribution of how access is used, by whom, and from where.

The anomaly detection built into Sotero creates active defenses that block access and drive alerts for abnormal usage in real time, ensuring that security teams can react quickly and lock down potential attacks. With this power, Sotero ensures that critical data remains secure against ransomware or other malware-based data exfiltration.

Data needs to be protected against misuse and abuse to ensure organizations operate at the speed of business. Sotero’s data security platform with anomaly detection meets that need with fast identification of abnormal behaviors and the ability to ensure the defense of critical information.