Which procedure should be employed to identify the types and locations of data held by Wesley Energy?

SCENARIO

Wesley Energy has finally made its move, acquiring the venerable oil and gas exploration firm Lancelot from its long-time owner David Wilson. As a member of the transition team, you have come to realize that Wilson’s quirky nature affected even Lancelot’s data practices, which are maddeningly inconsistent. “The old man hired and fired IT people like he was changing his necktie,” one of Wilson’s seasoned lieutenants tells you, as you identify the traces of initiatives left half complete.

For instance, while some proprietary data and personal information on clients and employees is encrypted, other sensitive information, including health information from surveillance testing of employees for toxic exposures, remains unencrypted, particularly when included within longer records with less-sensitive data. You also find that data is scattered across applications, servers and facilities in a manner that at first glance seems almost random.

Among your preliminary findings of the condition of data at Lancelot are the following:

✑ Cloud technology is supplied by vendors around the world, including firms that you have not heard of. You are told by a former Lancelot employee that these vendors operate with divergent security requirements and protocols.

✑ The company’s proprietary recovery process for shale oil is stored on servers among a variety of less-sensitive information that can be accessed not only by scientists, but by personnel of all types at most company locations.

✑ DES is the strongest encryption algorithm currently used for any file.

✑ Several company facilities lack physical security controls, beyond visitor check-in, which familiar vendors often bypass.

✑ Fixing all of this will take work, but first you need to grasp the scope of the mess and formulate a plan of action to address it.

Which procedure should be employed to identify the types and locations of data held by Wesley Energy?
A . Privacy audit.
B. Log collection
C. Data inventory.
D. Data classification.

View Answer

Answer: C

Explanation:

To identify the types and locations of data held by Wesley Energy, a data inventory should be employed. A data inventory involves creating a comprehensive record of all the data held by an organization, including information about its type and location.