Big data security : good practices and recommendations on the security of big data systems

We witness a new industrial revolution driven by digital data, computation and automation. Human activities, industrial processes and research, lead to a data collection and processing on an unprecedented scale, spurring new products and services as well as new business processes and scientific methodologies.1 Big Data is increasingly being used in many sectors. Research institutions, Industry and Government agencies active in Big Data technologies, have been working more than ever before on building novel data analysis techniques for Big Data. Business players and technology providers work on creating new products and services and even developing entirely new business models that are massively based on aggregation and analysis, of extremely large and fast growing volumes of data. It is important to understand that although most of the organizations see the potential of Big Data, they are still in the research phase, and it is very few that are actively exploiting the benefits of the technologies. One of the main issues in using Big Data systems is security. Big Data systems are complex and heterogeneous, and the security of the whole system must be holistically approached. Moreover, the integration of different technologies introduces new security issues that must be properly addressed. In creating this report we analysed input from a number of different sources, to better understand the usage of Big Data systems in different sectors. Based on the Big Data analysis, recommendations to organizations are provided in the current report on how to support secure adoption of Big Data systems.