Building a Defense in Depth Strategy for Sensitive Data
Help Net Security, Thursday, July 23rd, 2026
Defense in depth requires multiple coordinated layers across the data lifecycle to protect sensitive information.
A single security control leaves exploitable gaps, according to software engineer Venkata Pavan Kumar Gummadi.
The strategy involves four coordinated layers: classification labels for sensitive fields, tokenization to replace high-value data, data loss prevention policies that monitor data paths, and access controls using identity-based short-lived credentials.
A case study walks through how each layer catches threats the previous one missed, ultimately enabling recovery from a ransomware attack.