Top 10 Data-Centric Security Software 

Egnyte is a business cloud storage and file-sharing service. Egnyte is dedicated solely to file collaboration and management, making it a more focused and specialized solution compared to generalist platforms.

For companies needing file management features like local caching, offline access, and hybrid cloud management, Egnyte is a strong choice. 

With Egnyte companies can:

• Protect legacy file access 
• Enable cloud file storage
• Execute File syncing

Pros:

• Seamless collaboration: The software facilitates collaboration on documents, particularly for teams working remotely. While it doesn’t natively support simultaneous editing for Office docs on Macs (using the desktop version of Office), it supports real-time collaboration via Office Online.
• Support for hybrid file sharing: Egnyte excels in providing hybrid file-sharing capabilities. This means businesses can seamlessly access, sync, and share files across cloud and on-premises environments without the complexities of managing two separate storage systems.
• Strict access controls and permissions for files for enterprise-level security.

Cons:

• Pricing: Egnyte can be more expensive than some competitors, especially when adding features like SSO (Single Sign-On) and device management.
• Folder recovery limitations: With Egnyte folders, only individual files cannot be restored to a previous point in time.
• Limited platform support for editing on Mac: To edit Office files on Macs, you need to use Office Online, whereas this feature works natively on Windows.

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is a single service provider solution that includes backup, and anti-malware (including anti-virus, anti-ransomware, and anti-crypto jacking). 

In addition to backups, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud offers endpoint protection that includes antivirus, firewall, and ransomware protection, ensuring a complete solution for endpoint security.

This unified approach simplifies management and improves efficiency, especially for businesses looking for an all-in-one solution to protect their data and systems from cyber threats and data loss.

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud’s Security and management functions include

• XDR – extended detection and response
• Backup and disaster recovery
• DLP – data loss prevention
• File sync and share
• Patch management and URL filtering
• Email security

Imperva Data Security Fabric 

Imperva is a data security company that assists businesses in securing sensitive data throughout the whole cloud adoption process. 

The platform provides visibility into data activities, ensures security across environments, and provides deeper security and threat context, and unified data protection.

This includes identifying, classifying, and monitoring data activities, as well as enforcing policies across multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments. 

Coverage: 

• Protects any data sources and types:
  • structured,
  • unstructured,
  • and semi-structured.
• Provides over 260 built-in integrations with other widely used enterprise security infrastructure systems:
• Offers native integration with over 65 database services.

Satori Data Security Platform

Satori Data Security Platform enables security and engineering teams to streamline data access by automating access controls, security, and compliance needs throughout their data architecture. It is primarily used by healthcare, technology, and financial services companies.

With Satori’s Data Security Platform’s data store discovery feature, users can connect Satori directly to their cloud accounts and receive a comprehensive picture of all data stores in the organization. 

For example, if a team creates a “shadow” cloud database without access restrictions, the data and security teams will be notified immediately and will take action, such as shutting it down or implementing suitable access controls.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection

With Microsoft Purview Information Protection (previously Microsoft Information Protection) users can categorize, and protect sensitive information wherever it may reside or transit. The information protection capabilities include:

• Sensitivity labels to:
  • Manage sensitivity labels for Office apps
  • Encrypt documents and emails
  • Protect calendar items, Teams meetings, and chat

• Message encryption: Encrypts email messages and attached documents.
• Microsoft Purview Data Map: Identifies sensitive data and applies labeling to content in Microsoft Purview Data Map assets. These include files in storage such as Azure Data Lake and Azure Files and schematized data such as columns in Azure SQL DB and Azure Cosmos DB.
• Endpoint data loss prevention: Extend DLP capabilities to items on Windows 10 computers.

Why is data-centric software important?

Data-centric software focuses on data security, protection, and management at the granular level over the systems and networks that store data. These tools seek to directly secure the data within the network perimeter.

One advantage of this technique is that a network or device intrusion does not immediately compromise information. Similarly, if an attacker can decrypt a bit of data, they will only have access to that particular data, not the information stored on your device.

Data-centric security and zero-trust methods share similarities

Data-centric security and zero-trust techniques complement one another.

• The data-centric security strategy emphasizes the need to protect data at the granular level.
• Zero-trust security paradigm emphasizes data protection while restricting access to authorized users exclusively.

Numerous companies tightly connect the two techniques in their security programs, limiting data loss while providing greater control over sensitive information.

Data-centric security solutions provide attribute-based access control (ABAC) to ensure that only authorized users can access critical information.

How does data-centric security software work?

Data-centric security software seeks to protect data within an enterprise. Several systems, procedures, and policies collaborate to enable data-centric security for businesses, including:

1. Data encryption converts data into unreadable encrypted text, which prevents unauthorized access. It can be used with data at rest or in transit.
2. Data classification is the process of categorizing and tagging data based on common criteria such as level of sensitivity or project scope. The tagging process adds labels or metadata to enable identification and categorization, ensuring proper data protection.
3. Data governance ensures the accuracy of an organization’s data by establishing guidelines for data handling, access, and management. It also improves the confidence and traceability of an organization’s data.
4. Access restrictions ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive information. The system verifies access permission using a variety of authentication methods, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), and role-based access control (RBAC).
5. Data loss prevention prevents the loss of sensitive information, whether accidentally or purposefully.
6. Data monitoring and auditing analyze an organization’s data for security incidents or risks. 

Vendor focus areas

Vendors focus on:

• Data security posture management (DSPM): Protects the organization’s data infrastructure, not just on sensitive data.  These software go beyond the discovery and classification of cloud data. They have a broader scope and include risk assessment, compliance management, and data access control actions. For more: DSPM vendors.
• Cloud content collaboration: Operate on a cloud environment to enable secure file sharing and collaboration of cloud content.
• Data masking: Obfuscates sensitive data to preserve privacy. These software are useful in non-production environments like testing, development, or analytics where real data should not be used.
• Cloud data security: Excels cloud-based environments for data protection including preventing breaches, and data loss, and ensuring secure access in the cloud.
  Note that, while cloud data security solutions are strong for securing data in cloud environments, DSPM vendors offer a more comprehensive solution with machine learning, data detection, and response (DDR) capabilities that address a wider array of vulnerabilities.
• Sensitive data discovery: Helps security teams implement the first step in protection and compliance measures by flagging and classifying information, these vendors are data.

Further reading

External Links