If you have watched any news in the past few months, you know that cybersecurity is a hot topic – and a top priority for 2015. Even before the cyber attack against Sony Entertainment and the FBI Joint Intelligence Bulletin (JIB) warning news media organizations they could also be targeted,* U.S. businesses were planning to invest more resources into ensuring the security of online data.
One Gartner study said “the increasing adoption of mobile, cloud, social and information (often interacting together) will drive use of new security technology and services through 2016.”
In addition, a recent survey of IT and legal professionals by Forrester Consulting and data security firm Druva, highlights the importance of extending an organization’s cybersecurity focus beyond a company’s firewall. Nearly 90% of the companies participating in the survey said they plan to invest more in information governance programs in 2015, according to a Wall Street Journal report that summarized the study.**
The same Wall Street Journal report (“Survey Roundup: Information Governance Spending to Rise”) also shared this finding from a study by ScienceLogic, a cloud monitoring vendor, which provides some context for the increased scrutiny of cloud-based solutions: While 81% of companies around the world use public clouds, as many as 40% of them “don’t know what information they are storing in the cloud.”
These findings underscore the importance of ensuring cloud- or web-based solutions providers, such as your advertising distribution platform, are adhering to your organization‘s information governance requirements. Specific considerations include:
- Providers should offer a secure, redundant server/production environment and emergency fail-over.
- These facilities should also have processes in place for ensuring your data is always remotely backed up and firewall protected.
- Since advertisers and their agencies are distributing copyrighted material, it is important to use MPAA-rated physical storage facilities, which must adhere to the media industry’s most rigorous content protection requirements.***
As your company or clients ramp up their cybersecurity efforts, take a moment to think about whether your advertising delivery platform can meet these requirements or will it be the next casualty in a cyber attack?
*https://prod01-cdn03.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2014/12/DEC-24-JIB-Intercept.pdf
***http://www.fightfilmtheft.org/facility-security-program.html