Data protection at scale: reducing risk across a global insurer

The challenge

Protecting sensitive data in a rapidly evolving environment

Externally, the insurer faced heightened regulatory scrutiny, growing customer expectations around data protection, and more sophisticated cyber threats targeting sensitive information. The emergence of advanced AI and cybersecurity capabilities such as Mythos reinforced the need for stronger visibility and control over sensitive data.

Internally, decades of growth, legacy platforms, fragmented technologies, and technical debt had created blind spots across applications, cloud repositories, collaboration platforms, and user-managed file storage systems. Data was created and copied faster than it could be consistently discovered, classified, and protected, leaving critical processes reliant on manual effort. Data and Cybersecurity teams also managed related risks through separate processes, limiting a unified view of enterprise exposure and remediation priorities and creating operational inefficiencies.

The insurer needed a way to answer four fundamental questions with minimal manual intervention:

• Which information represents crown jewel data?
• Where is that data stored, and where is it transferred internally and externally?
• Is it consistently protected across applications and repositories?
• Where are stronger ownership, access controls, or exfiltration safeguards needed to reduce risk?

The solution

Building highly automated end-to-end data protection capabilities

Wavestone established the governance, processes, and technology needed to discover and protect sensitive data at enterprise scale.

Data Security Posture Management capabilities were implemented alongside a common taxonomy for sensitive data, enabling consistent discovery, classification, and remediation across priority applications and repositories. Compliance, Legal, Privacy, IT, and data owners and stewards were engaged throughout to align data protection requirements, controls, and remediation priorities across the organization. The insurer gained a scalable, repeatable approach to locating sensitive data, understanding how it flows across the enterprise, and prioritizing risk reduction.

The program established a new enterprise standard for protecting sensitive data by strengthening identity governance, access reviews, encryption, bulk data extract controls, and security monitoring. Across applications, control gaps were assessed, ownership was clarified, and remediation was prioritized. The program also extended governance to file shares and unstructured repositories by strengthening ownership, tightening access controls, reducing stale and over-retained data, and improving visibility and control across the insurer’s broader data estate.

The results

A unified, adaptable North Star for enterprise data protection

The insurer now has a unified, scalable approach to protecting sensitive data across structured and unstructured environments. Data and Cybersecurity teams operate through shared governance, aligned priorities, and coordinated remediation, strengthening enterprise decision-making as the technology estate and threat landscape continue to evolve.

Adaptable discovery capabilities provide enterprise visibility into crown jewel data, making it easier to identify risks and prioritize remediation. Strengthened ownership, access controls, and consistent protection standards have reduced risk across applications and unstructured repositories.

The organization also is now equipped with a repeatable approach to making data risk visible, measurable, and actionable across the enterprise, providing stronger regulatory readiness, greater cyber resilience, and a trusted foundation for AI.