Training Video | Data Discovery Process

Data discovery is the work of finding out what data you actually hold and where it lives, which is the starting point for protecting any of it properly.

Key concepts

• You cannot protect information that you do not know you have, wherever it happens to sit.
• Discovery looks across servers, laptops, cloud apps, shared drives, email, removable media, and backups.
• The output is an inventory: what data exists, who owns it, and where it currently sits.
• Watch for duplicate copies, spreadsheet exports, and old archives, which often hold forgotten sensitive records.
• Repeat the exercise regularly, because systems, staff, and vendors change faster than most inventories do.

Why it matters for your business

Once you know what you hold, each type of data can be given the protection it needs instead of a guess. A current inventory also shortens your response time during an incident, because you can answer the question of what was affected quickly and honestly. It tells you where to spend first, since the systems holding your most sensitive records clearly deserve the most attention and budget. Much of your data ends up in third-party hands, so pair discovery with vendor risk management to see the whole picture.