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Today (20 March) is International Data Centre Day, and to celebrate, its best we make sure they stay secure.
Data centres are important – strongholds of critical and important information without which, the world as we know it would cease to function.
According to estimates presented by Boon Edam Australia, 328.77 million terabytes of data are created on a daily basis and data centres are where much of it is stored, safely and securely.
However, with a data centre’s great power comes great responsibility, and even more so, a great big target for hackers.
Like a chest of gold and jewels for a pirate, data centres hold massive amounts of critical data that can be used by threat actors to launch greater attacks, or that can be leaked or sold for financial or other gains.
As such, it is vital that appropriate and sufficient protections are put in place to secure data centres and their contents.
“Anywhere that stores valuable data is also at risk of attacks, either by terrorists or criminals, so it’s vital that only authorised personnel can enter data facilities,” Michael Fisher, Boon Edam Australia managing director, said.
In light of International Data Centre Day, Boon Edam has released a white paper outlining methods for keeping data centres safe and running efficiently.
The white paper, “Best Practices for Data Centre Security and Efficiency”, outlines the key foundational areas of data centre security which include:
Fisher added that cloud data storage and data centres play an increasingly important role in business operations and organisations are increasingly dependent on them, making them much more appealing to threat actors.
“Our increasing dependence on data centres in the modern-day results in them being at risk of attacks – either by terrorists or criminals,” he said.
“We know that this means that much of a person’s time can be spent worrying about the security of a facility.”
For this reason, Fisher said data centres need to be protected with layered security, meaning if a threat actor breached one layer, there are additional layers of protection still in place.
“The use of security speed gates is well suited to the lobby of data facilities. These employ sensor technology to detect objects moving through and can prevent tailgating due to the use of an alarm – alerting security staff to a potential breach,” Fisher said.
“If the unlikely arises, and someone manages to unlawfully make their way through each of these security stages, it is important to engage in the highest levels of protection around the internal data systems themselves.
“This can be through the use of high security portals, which use biometric scanning and overhead sensors to ensure the credentials of each user. This is the ultimate security frontline – essential for protecting data at its hub.”
Fisher added that physical protection is also important, and that companies and Australia and New Zealand are already moving away from on-premises data centres, and instead opting for co-location for hosting and the cloud.
“International Data Centre Day is a great time for data centres to audit their security practices, to ensure they [are] securing their customers’ data with the latest and best practices,” Fisher concluded.
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