Data security refers to protective digital privacy measures that are applied to prevent unauthorized access to computers, databases and websites. Data security also protects data from corruption. Data security is the main priority for organizations of every size and genre.
Data security is also known as information security (IS) or computer security.
Examples of data security technologies include software/hardware disk encryption, backups, data masking and data erasure.
A key data security technology measure is scrambling, where digital data, software/hardware, and hard drives are scrambled and rendered unreadable to unauthorized users and hackers.
Data security is also very important for health care records, so health advocates and medical practitioners in the U.S. and other countries are working toward implementing electronic medical records (EMR) privacy by creating awareness about patient rights related to the release of data to laboratories, physicians, hospitals and other medical facilities.