The Real Elephant in the Room: Why No One Wants to Talk About Big Data Security

Gone are the days when businesses sit on the sidelines, mulling about whether they’ll actually get an ROI for investments in big data. Hadoop, Spark, Storm, and the gang have solidified their place in the business world, delivering phenomenal improvements in the past few years in terms of usability, ease of use, and compatibility.

But what’s missing from that list? What haven’t big data platforms managed to do in the past few years of improving? Well, that’s the elephant in the room, now, isn’t it? It’s the whole concept of Big Data Security.

Nobody’s Worried, But They Should Be

According to Gartner, only about 2 percent of companies that are leveraging big data are actually concerned about security. Considering the massive increases in data security breaches in recent years, this is beyond irresponsible. Data breaches have been steadily rising since 2011. Not only are security breaches rising in terms of numbers, the attacks are becoming much more severe. Often backed by the deep pockets of cyber terrorists and even world governments, hackers are privy to massive collections of tools that make data breaches almost as easy as installing your computer’s operating system. In this environment, it isn’t a matter of “if” big data will be targeted, but rather when and who the first hapless victim will be.

The Hadoop Ecosystem is Vulnerable at Every Level

The Hadoop ecosystem doesn’t simply have a missing security link. According to industry experts, there are numerous significant vulnerabilities across the ecosystem, including in Hadoop itself and in the overall Hadoop environment, including Spark, Storm, and other big data and data analytics products.

How to Secure Your Big Data Operations

Okay, but what can you do? How do you begin addressing the big yellow elephant in the room? Here’s what it takes to make your Hadoop and/or big data environment secure.

• -Partner with a trusted cloud service provider that specializes in big data. The vendor will serve as a much-needed additional layer of security. Cloud vendors have become incredibly skilled in the art and science of cyber security.
• -Be sure to leverage all of the security settings provided in the big data tools you use. Most of these products come with security settings, but those settings default to off. You must manually change all of these settings.
• -Invest in the resources you need to be successful. The primary reason that most organizations fail to secure their big data operations as they should is because they lack the time and personnel to do so. Don’t cripple your big data team by staffing it minimally and providing them with scant resources to do the job. Given the enormous potential for ROI that big data delivers, investments here won’t go to waste!

Bigstep provides a wide variety of big data products and services to help empower and secure your big data operations. See our products here.