Forrester: data too distributed to secure.

• Position: STUDY - Brief article

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According to Forrester Resarch, security profesionals should embrace cloud-based services, web-based tools, and consumer devices in order to protect data from the risks posed by such technologies.

Everything has changed, Rob Whiteley, vice president and research director at Porrester, told SearchSecurity.com. "The point at which the conversation starts is no longer what we're tackling, but what we're doing differently to protect intellectual property and help mitigate risks that are being undertaken," he said.

Security professionals can't control the various web-based technologies being used by employees, Whiteley said, so they must view the issue through a risk-oriented approach as opposed to a security-oriented approach.

For example, data has become too distributed to be protected at the same level, he said, so non-mission-critical data residing on employee iPhones can be secured at a lower level than critical data on an employee's hard drive. The hard part for security pros is determining...