The Security and Business Continuity Benefits of Remote Data Teams

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the risks of relying on concentrated, colocated data teams when offices are forced to shut down. As companies embrace flexible and hybrid work models, establishing distributed remote data teams provides enhanced security and business continuity benefits:

Reduced Data Breach Risks

With a traditional centralized data team, customer data must be copied to company servers where team members can access it on-premises. This creates a "honeypot" of aggregated data that is very attractive to cyber criminals - one breach could net huge amounts of data. Distributed models allow accessing data virtually without pooling it in one high-risk environment.

Minimizing Insider Threats

Unfortunately insider data theft is still a major security issue. Having team members across multiple locations limits the damage any one rogue employee could inflict since they only have access to a portion of the data. Wider distribution protects the whole.

Physical Data Security

When data scientists work remotely, sensitive data remains secured in source systems instead of company offices. This eliminates the physical vulnerabilities of servers being stolen, lost or damaged at a centralized company location. Keeping data in original systems is far more secure.

Securing Data In Transit

With distributed teams, data remains in secured cloud storage and is accessed virtually. This data is already encrypted in transit as part of platform protocols. If physical drives had to be shipped to offices, data would be vulnerable for the period it is moving.

No Printing or Copying Sensitive Data

A common data security threat comes from insiders printing or copying data that is then left out or stolen. Fully remote data teams access everything electronically in cloud platforms. Data never has to be printed or copied to be vulnerable to physical theft.

Role-Based Access Controls

Cloud platforms make it easy to implement strong access controls and permissions around who can access what data from anywhere. Robust role-based access management is simpler to enforce for remote users than people working on-premises accessing local servers.

Geographic Redundancy

With team members distributed across different geographic regions rather than one office, business continuity risk is diversified. If there is a power outage or natural disaster in one location, capacity stays intact allowing operations to continue uninterrupted.

Built-in Backup

Having data experts work from multiply home offices essentially creates a built-in backup system. If any team members become unavailable, others can fill in to keep data projects on track without delays. The law of large numbers provides resilience.

Rapid Scalability

Business continuity also requires being able to rapidly scale up to meet spikes in data demand. With a globally distributed team, capacity can be added quickly by onboarding remote contractors from talent pools around the world. Agility is enhanced.

Reduced Burnout Risk

Data scientist burnout became an epidemic during the pandemic. Distributed teams experience lower burnout rates because remote work provides greater work-life balance. Lower turnover risk improves business continuity since experienced talent stays.

Unaffected by Office Disruptions

Incidents like power failures, weather events or fires can disrupt office-based data teams. With remote data scientists already equipped to work from home, operations continue as usual unaffected by local disruptions at company locations.

Distributed Guardrails

On centralized teams, lapses in security practices can spread quickly from peer to peer in the office. On distributed teams, sloppy practices are less likely to become normalized and institutionalized since peer interactions are more limited.

In summary, the Security and Business Continuity Benefits of Remote Data Teams are Obvious

Remote and distributed data teams minimize security vulnerabilities while providing redundancy to enable resilient operations. With sensitive data kept secured in source systems, risk exposure is reduced. Geographic distribution protects from local disruptions at any one office location. Maintaining business continuity is vital with data at the heart of modern companies.

Random Forest Services can help you build a remote, distributed Data Science team. Contact us today.

Distributed Security