As corporate leaders prioritize generative artificial intelligence, the importance of data security in AI applications is increasingly emphasized to protect sensitive information.

Cybersecurity is a data problem, and organizations need to understand where their data is, how it’s being used and who is accessing it to protect it properly, according to Scott Leach (pictured, left), vice president of APAC at Varonis Systems Inc.

Varonis Systems’ Scott Leach, VP of APAC, and Maheswaran Shanmugasundaram country manager, India, talk to theCUBE about data security in AI.

“If you think about what the threat actors are interested in today, it is all about data,” Leach said. “ Businesses are getting broken into because attackers want their data. If you don’t understand where it is exposed, if you don’t understand how it’s being used, how can you properly protect it? That’s part of the problem we help organizations solve.”

Leach and Maheswaran Shanmugasundaram (right), country manager, India, at Varonis, spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante at the RSA Conference, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how organizations need to prioritize data security, especially with the rise of generative AI and the shared responsibility model for securing code, data and infrastructure in the cloud. (* Disclosure below.)

Enhancing data security in the age of AI

Organizations need to ensure secure deployment of technology by knowing what data is important, controlling access to it and tracking information usage patterns to detect and contain suspicious activity, Shanmugasundaram explained.

“We help organizations know what data is important where is it residing, ensure that only the right people have access to information with right permissions because we have to do this,” Shanmugasundaram said. “When we perform assessments, we see close to 50% of information being overexposed and people getting access to information irrespective of whether they need it or not for their job. We help organizations to get that visibility.”

Varonis offers 24/7 managed data detection and response, with analysts triaging unusual data access patterns, providing value to customers by understanding and monitoring data access to manage and remediate top risks, according to Leach and Shanmugasundaram.

“People get a lot of alerts, how much of that is noise? It’s critical to add enough context to an alert so people can act on it, right? That’s where I think we are significantly different,” Shanmugasundaram said. “Since we understand data and we monitor data access patterns, we are able to add that missing context on what that particular threat is providing for their organization in terms of data. That’s where I think most of our customers see a lot of value.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the RSA Conference:

(* Disclosure: Varonis Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Varonis Systems nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE