Organizations are modernizing IT and increasing adoption of new technology such as collaboration, Big Data, and AI by adopting the cloud mindset, strengthening cybersecurity, while accelerating collaboration inside and outside the enterprise. For this reason, it is imperative for organizations to embrace zero trust security model to segregate and segment network, data, and applications in an agile manner.

Over the course of last decade, intelligent enterprises have made significant investment to consolidate core business applications and unify business processes across the organization to increase business agility and efficiency. By standardizing processes, consolidating systems, and fostering collaboration, organizations can adapt quickly to changes, optimize operations, and achieve higher levels of productivity.

As the result, the number of access points and users who need access to the data increased drastically. This results to many applications and systems being shared by human and non-human users that do not have the same permission to all the data, causing the access and data security control over application and data to become more complex and costly to maintain. In particular, when different teams or individuals (both insiders and contractors) have distinct responsibilities. Logical data segregation can automatically segregate data based on roles or functions, thereby enforcing separation of duties. This controls increase safeguard to sensitive information and minimizes the risk of unauthorized actions.

In addition, Deloitte has noted the increasing importance of logical separation for organizations pursuing JV and undergoing M&A and emphasized that logical separation should be of top priority for IT executives to enable day-to-day activities and prevent unauthorized access to data. Organizations may have systems that are shared between different entities in relationships like joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. This heightens the importance of having logical data segregation to limit the access to confidential data (proprietary information, trade secrets, or classified data) to only authorized users.

Furthermore, based on Accenture’s latest Compliance Risk Study – 2022, 95% of the respondents have built or are building a culture of compliance to share the responsibility across the enterprise. It is observed that compliance functions worldwide are experiencing the pressure of rapid transformation and the necessity to address an expanding agenda of compliance. As such, logical data segregation becomes essential to ensure that access controls and security measures are in place to protect sensitive data and maintain compliance. This approach helps organizations to be compliant with different data protection regulations if they deal with sensitive or regulated data like personally identifiable information (PII), financial data, or controlled technical data.

With the rise in remote works and increased use of cloud-based technologies and collaboration tools, it is crucial to implement a robust data segregation solution along with network segregation to limit access to sensitive data as the impact of unauthorized access to data can be detrimental to businesses.

Moreover, logical data segregation is significant in the geopolitical climate where data sovereignty, national security concerns, and regulatory requirements vary across different regions. Organizations will need to enable fine-grained authorization within the same company by externalizing security controls and enforce zero trust access policies to determine a user’s access rights. With logical data segregation, organizations can adhere to regional data protection laws, safeguard sensitive data from geopolitical risks, and maintain trust with customers and stakeholders.