The same thing that makes unstructured data so promising also makes it challenging: It’s inherently difficult to fully see, analyze and understand. While mature analytics tools have long existed for structured data, these tools don’t work with unstructured data. The aforementioned next-generation analytics tool — using sophisticated AI — are just becoming available and practical for most organizations. The result, experts say, is that the vast majority of unstructured data remains completely untapped. More concerningly, the lack of visibility into unstructured data also means that the vast majority of unstructured data in the typical enterprise remains largely unprotected by data security tools and strategies. Importance of securing unstructured data It’s common sense, really: If it’s valuable, then it’s worth protecting. That’s patently obvious in cases where the essential work product of an organization exists as unstructured data. Of course, you want to protect your employees’ work product and secure your IP, your 'crown jewels.' But it’s also critical to protect all that potential value — because it also has potential in a competitor’s hands. Imagine a competitor gaining access to a retailer’s customer experience insights, a manufacturer’s operational insights, a tech platform’s IT operational insights or the higher-level business intelligence (BI) insights at any organization. That competitor could just as easily take that raw unstructured data and extract the value to be used for their again (and to your detriment). Why conventional data security tools & approaches don’t fit unstructured data Conventional data security tools built to protect structured data. DLP, CASB and other policy-based tools were designed for a long-gone world where all business value (data in need of protecting) existed as structured data — where the biggest concern was regulated data types like social security numbers, medical records and other personally identifiable information (PII). These policy-driven tools are designed to look for the clear and present hallmarks of structured data — the numerical format of a social security number or credit card number, for example — and then let the security team block the movement/exfiltration of those protected data types. Download this report to get the data on why traditional security tools aren't getting the job done. DLP & CASB can’t see unstructured data Conventional data security tools cannot see unstructured data. In fact, they simply were never meant to be used with unstructured data — yet they are increasingly applied to the problem of protecting valuable unstructured data. Case in point: a Word document could contain extraordinarily valuable information, or it could be a junk draft of an inconsequential memo. DLP and CASB struggle to tell the difference because they’re not designed to understand what value looks like in all these unstructured files. Unstructured data evolves too quickly The way around the visibility problem is that organizations need to go through an exhaustive data classification exercise to identify exactly which unstructured data/files need to be protected. This isn’t just a time-consuming pain; it doesn’t fit the dynamic nature of valuable unstructured data. Going back to the Word doc example from above: What starts as a junk draft might eventually become a new go-to-market strategy. Likewise, what starts as one of the countless explorations in R&D might eventually become your groundbreaking new product. There’s no clear line between valuable and not valuable. Moreover, policy-based tools depend on the security team to make that policy change to label a document valuable. In other words, these tools can only look for what the security team tells them to look for. The modern world of work just moves too fast for this approach to be practical. Unstructured data needs to move Policy-based tools use rigid blocking capabilities to protect sensitive, regulated data. That’s great when the data and the rules are explicitly clear: A social security number should NEVER be exfiltrated outside the organization. But it’s not so great for the dynamic nature of the unstructured data that drives the modern enterprise. Work product needs to evolve — rapidly. In our collaboration-powered work culture, sharing and iterating is how work happens. Policy-based tools are too rigid to handle this. The result is a litany of false positives that frustrate employees and stifle productivity and collaboration, along with alert fatigue and endless policy exceptions (read: blind spots) from the security team. A modern approach to protecting unstructured data Start with visibility You can’t protect what you can’t see. Organizations need to build a foundation of comprehensive visibility, with the right tools to be able to see, analyze and understand all their unstructured data — from every device, every application (sanctioned or not), in the cloud, and on or off the network. All data matters This comprehensive visibility stems from embracing the paradigm that all data matters. Organizations can’t just focus on what they think is valuable, sensitive, or in need of protecting today. They need to be able to see all data in order to address the dynamic realities of collaboration culture. Sophisticated analytics unlock the real value Advanced AI and BI tools are unlocking the value buried in mountains of unstructured data — and the same potential exists within data security. Advanced analytics capabilities can help organizations tune out the noise of harmless everyday productivity and collaboration — leveraging metadata to put context around and understand unstructured data. This gives security teams a clear signal of risk, so they can better identify when data that may be valuable move in abnormal ways that are more likely to present a risk to your business. Don’t inhibit the business — focus on right-sized response The rigid blocking approach has always been problematic, frustrating users and security teams alike. Today, organizations simply can’t afford to inhibit speed, agility, collaboration, and innovation. They need to empower their employees’ ingenuity — and that means allowing unstructured data and files to move and evolve. But with comprehensive visibility, context and analytics, they can protect the value created through that free collaboration. They’ll not only have a clear signal of what’s actually risky — but the contextual visibility to investigate immediately and drive a rapid, right-sized response to protect the data, without inhibiting the business.