The EU General Data Protection Regulation is the most thought-out personal data protection legislation to date… even if companies will have difficulty implementing it, say experts at Balabit.
After all, the Regulation sets out many requirements for organizations to meet in terms of collecting, managing and storing the personal data of employees and customers. However, the provisions of the Regulation contain no guidelines on how to meet these requirements.
At a time when the US Senate has allowed American Internet and telecommunications service providers to use their customers' personal data for commercial purposes, we can only welcome the EU regulation, whose aim is to strengthen the protection of European users' personal data. In today's situation, where "everything is digital," it is important that users have full control over their data.
On paper everything looks very good, but in practice some challenges may arise. Personal data is used not only in trade or marketing, but also in security incident management and digital forensics. If all data can be easily deleted or changed at any moment, incident management and investigation will lose much of their effectiveness. – comments István Molnár, Compliance Specialist at Balabit
Mistakes have always happened and will probably continue to occur, but without quality digital investigation they will occur even more often than before. "Encrypting everything" will also pose a serious challenge for companies, because some data must be available in order to efficiently manage day-to-day operations. – adds Molnár.
The pros of the General Data Protection Regulation
The GDPR provisions are a big step forward in the area of personal data protection. They will provide a legal framework for privacy protection and data management. Even if maintaining compliance will be very complicated for companies, the GDPR is so far the best legal form ever introduced with regard to data protection and respect for users' privacy online.
Another important point is that businesses are obliged to introduce a simplified and secure process for exchanging and transferring data throughout Europe.
Together with the GDPR, businesses will adopt a more reactive model in relation to erroneous data, whereas previously they focused on this subject only sporadically, usually when the next security audit was approaching.
The cons of the General Data Protection Regulation
If companies focus on the fear of fines, they will not notice the potentially beneficial effects of implementing the GDPR provisions in their organizations, namely freer and secure data flow throughout Europe. It is also clear that financial penalties motivate companies more strongly to comply with the regulations. However, fines of up to 4% of global turnover may seem very high, or even excessive for companies for which paying such a high fine could mean closing down their business.
About Balabit
Balabit is a leading provider of Privileged Access Management (PAM) and centralized Log Management solutions that make it possible to minimize the risk of data breaches caused by privileged account misuse.
The integrated PAM solution developed by Balabit protects organizations in real time against threats arising from the improper use of high-risk accounts and privileged user accounts. The solution enables management of privileged sessions and analysis of privileged account activity. As a result, it makes it possible to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks carried out using a privileged user account, both in the case of an insider threat and an external attack using obtained credentials.
Thanks to integration with security systems already deployed in a company, Balabit's PAM solution enables a flexible, people-focused approach that improves IT security without creating additional barriers to business operations.
Balabit, founded in 2000, has been selected by 25 Fortune 100 clients among more than a million enterprise users worldwide. The company operates globally through local offices across Europe and the United States and through a network of partner companies.
