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Beneath the never-ending headlines about data breaches today is the simple fact that companies are collecting, curating and hoarding ever larger and richer archives of intimate information about their customers. Log files and transaction records that once would have been deleted the moment they were no longer needed are now being retained indefinitely. The default stance at many companies is to archive absolutely everything about their customers in the off chance that it becomes valuable someday in the distant future. Unfortunately, this data hoarding mentality is creating a new era of cyber risks to businesses.
The “big data” era has ushered in a newfound recognition for the value of data. Whereas certain types of data have always been viewed as valuable and routinely bought and sold by data brokers or used to attract advertisers, the plethora of new analytic tools and techniques have shown companies that even the most mundane data can have enormous value. Companies that once wholeheartedly embraced mandatory deletion schedules and rigorous risk review processes before any data stream could be archived have today pivoted towards keep-everything mindsets.
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