Big Data: Blessing or a Boon?

By CIOReview | Wednesday, November 22, 2017

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By nature, big data portrays a high risk to companies; essentially, the more data that a company acquires, the more it has to lose, apart from making the management procedure much more complicated. Data, along with its inherent value has much more to do with the issue at hand: the more value the data you’ve collected has, the more expensive it is to lose it. The cost of data loss can hit any size of business, leaving cyber security out of the picture; it is not always to be blamed. Due to natural disasters, hardware failure or even transferring to newer servers, a company is susceptible to data loss. Hence, there is a pressing need for businesses to conjure recovery plans for the same and continue to develop continuity, so as to decrease the risk of occurrences that might be beyond the control of the business.

When the blame is on hackers, however, the end result is devastating. Take, for instance, the WannCry ransomware attack, which proved that no organization—regardless of size—can ever be completely immune to attacks. Nevertheless, smaller companies are often targeted more often by attackers on a regular basis, as they are more vulnerable to these attacks that lock data away, unless a payment is made.

Even so, there is light at the end of the tunnel; security advancements like blockchain are capable to curtail many of these woes. Big data is capable of closing more security loopholes than it opens. With regard to cyber security, the more data, the better. For instance, fighting fraud can be done more efficiently with larger amounts of transaction and customer data. Sharing information from one company to another can further improve the chances of detecting fraud. As the understanding of big data deepens, so does the ability to secure it.