Data Protection vs. Data Security: What’s the Difference?

Data is an important part of many businesses’ daily operations. It’s generated by every action a customer or client takes on a website or database and influences everything from corporate innovation to your audience’s daily lives. The value of this data also makes it susceptible to hackers and breaches. To keep this data safe, many businesses use a combination of data protection and data security practices.

Discover more about data protection versus data security, the benefits and differences, and other vital aspects such as continuous data protection and data security management.

What is data protection?

Data protection is the process of preventing sensitive information from corruption and loss. It aims to keep data available and within the compliance guidelines set by regulators. Data protection can stop unauthorized users from disclosing, changing, or destroying data when done correctly. Data protection applies to data’s entire lifecycle, from when it’s created to when it’s deleted. Within that cycle, data protection keeps the data immutable and accessible for those authorized to access it.

Businesses employ several different data protection technologies, including the following:

• Data backups: This practice creates a system of continuous data protection by ensuring that a secondary copy of the data always exists. Businesses can quickly recover and restore the missing information in case of data loss.

• Encryption: Data encryption protects sensitive data from exposure if it is improperly stored or shared. It is a key part of ensuring a business complies with regulatory requirements.

• Firewalls: Firewalls monitor and control both incoming and outgoing network traffic, preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to data they shouldn’t.

What is data protection used for?

Data protection plays a key role in ensuring any data being preserved for use complies with regulatory requirements. Governments set forward legislation that outlines both the types of data businesses have permission to collect and how professionals must protect and store data for future use. Data protection strategies typically involve implementing policies and practices that ensure professionals use data legally and ethically. It details the technical components of how and why data storage and utilization occurs.

Advantages of data protection

Data protection provides many advantages to businesses, including the assurance that important data stays available to streamline operations and improve customer experiences. It can also prevent businesses from paying massive fines for not complying with governments’ regulatory requirements. So, if a breach or hack does happen, data protection measures help reduce downtime and minimize data loss.

Disadvantages of data protection

The biggest disadvantage of data protection is the cost encountered in protecting data and keeping your business in compliance. Due to the complicated requirements set forth by governments, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), it can be expensive and time-consuming to consistently ensure that your data frameworks comply with the newest legislation, which tends to change quite frequently.

What is data security?

Data security’s main focus is to preserve the integrity of data. This includes ensuring data stays confidential by using systems that prevent breaches or hacks resulting in data theft or destruction. Data security is a subset of data protection, but instead of encompassing the broader issue of data availability, it focuses on who can access data and prevent theft. Data security involves both the physical security of items such as storage devices or hardware and the logical security of software and organizational policies and procedures.

What is data security used for?

Data security protects data, networks, and devices from unapproved access, unauthorized users, and cyberattacks or threats. It involves implementing technology, policies, techniques, and procedures that work together to prevent data loss.

Data security uses a wide range of tools, including the following:

• Data erasure: Data erasure allows for overwriting data on any storage device, which is much more secure than the standard deletion of data.

• Access management: Access management ensures only authorized users can access certain data types.

• Activity monitoring: This process monitors data and file activity to look for suspicious activity, alerting a data security management team to hacking or breach attempts.

Advantages of data security

Data security has many advantages, including keeping a business’s data safe from hackers, maintaining customer trust in your brand since you protect their data, and preventing financial losses stemming from cyberattacks. 

Disadvantages of data security

The main disadvantages of data security are similar to those of data protection—namely, the policies, procedures, and tools tend to be expensive and time-consuming to implement. In addition, human error tends to make data security less effective, so untrained employees might reduce the efficacy of the structures you’ve put in place.

Data protection vs. data security: other things to consider

When creating an effective data preservation strategy, you’ll typically want to find a framework that includes data protection and security components. Taking the time needed to implement a multifaceted structure should help minimize legal risks and fines and increase customer trust and loyalty by safeguarding their sensitive data. Additionally, you’ll save money by preventing costly data breaches or cyberattacks and improving your business due to the quality of data you have access to.

Get started in data with Coursera.

Data protection and data security are two facets of an effective data preservation strategy. While data protection focuses on availability and regulatory compliance, data security focuses on the specific tools that prevent unauthorized access. To discover more about the world of data security and protection, consider enrolling in courses such as Cisco’s Data Security course or the University of Pennsylvania's Privacy Law and Data Protection course on Coursera. This can allow you to uncover the data safety fundamentals that serve as a key introduction to the data industry.