4.3. Data Protection Concepts and Strategies

💡 First Principle: Data is what attackers ultimately want — credentials, intellectual property, financial records, personal information. Infrastructure security protects the containers; data protection secures the contents. Without data classification, you protect everything equally (expensive) or protect nothing adequately (negligent). Without understanding data states, you leave data exposed during transitions. Data protection is where security meets the organization's actual assets.

What happens without data protection strategy? An organization encrypts its database but sends unencrypted backups to a third-party storage provider. Customer data is classified as "confidential" but sits in a file share accessible to all employees. A company stores European customer data in US data centers, violating GDPR sovereignty requirements and incurring massive fines. Each failure stems from ignoring one aspect of data protection.

Think of data protection as a lifecycle: you classify data when it's created, protect it in every state it exists in, control who accesses it, track where it travels, and destroy it when it's no longer needed. Miss any stage and the chain of protection breaks.