Secude, an SAP partner and a leading data security provider specialising in security for SAP software, recently revealed its cyber security industry predictions for 2016.

With data security needs constantly growing and the variety and number of data security solutions on the market also increasing, there continues to be a great deal of discussion surrounding product purchasing decisions.

Now, at the end of 2015, Secude President Americas, Michael Kummer, reviewed three of his key predictions about where cyber security emphasis will be placed in the new year.

"Today data protection is paramount. Data is what most attackers want and they will go to extreme lengths to get it. Data owners and custodians, not the IT or security teams, must be responsible for their data from creation," said David Monahan, Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates.

"Relying on IT does not scale because there is too much information being created. Secude offers organisations using SAP the opportunity to take control of their information security with granular control at the pace of creation and on enterprise scale."

The three predictions are:

Customers are asking for solutions that protect data at the time of creation. 
Kummer stated that "reactive and content-sensitive data protection solutions like DLP are still important as a base layer, but enterprises have realised that they're not enough to ensure data security. Protecting data itself rather than the storage location or communication channel is an incredibly effective way of ensuring sensitive information is secured in our increasingly complex business world, where information cannot be simply contained inside the enterprise borders."

The amount of data will continue to grow, especially outside of data centres
Kummer noted that data outside of the data center is extremely difficult to protect, and this fact increases the importance of data-centric solutions.

"We also need to realise that there is no single solution that can solve this problem, and, as such, enterprises must begin to think in layers and integrations. Automated and context-sensitive data classification will be a key issues for the next couple of years, as proper classification is the first step, after auditing, in a comprehensive data protection strategy," said Kummer.

The IT security industry is consolidating
Large players are seeking to broaden their portfolio through acquisition. For instance, Microsoft's recent acquisition of Israeli classification and data protection company Secure Islands strengthens its Rights Management offering.

Kummer predicted that further consolidation in the area of enterprise data classification will take place. 

Additionally, regulatory compliance is becoming a hot topic as more data breaches grab headlines. In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a ruling supporting the FTC to take action against organiszations not adequately securing consumer data. Additionally, the EU introduced General Data and Protection Legislation, which would implement new regulation on privacy laws for any organisation that possesses personal data.

These instances show that data security is also becoming an issue of keeping compliant with regulatory boards. This change will nudge company management to look into more auditing and log collection and analysis solutions that track and detect threat and risk in data movement patterns and user behaviour.