A recent EY survey showed senior leaders face a variety of challenges with AI and cloud computing technologies in their organization — with security and high costs causing the most concern. Seventy percent said security and protection of data when outsourcing IT is a challenge. To cope, businesses are scrambling to identify where and how their vital data should be stored. The rapid growth in data centers — including those owned by the world’s largest technology companies, often referred to as hyperscalers, and those built or leased by companies in other industries — is proof that data is big business and getting bigger. In turn, companies are having to think more broadly about the security of their data. Increasingly, they are storing data off-site, often at non-company facilities. And because data today operates much like a physical supply chain — market data links to customer data, which links to operational data — the risk to security is intensified; a breach in one segment can easily spread across the enterprise. While physical security is typically handled by a dedicated data center facility function, using sophisticated modern surveillance and authentication technology to prevent unauthorized entrance, securing the data logically is a different story. This is not to say that nothing is being done. Penetration testing, for example, is a critical tool that organizations and data center operators use to identify vulnerabilities in hardware, software and network components. And by simulating real-world attacks, organizations evaluate their readiness to detect sophisticated cybercrime and test their response strategies. Penetration testing also helps data center clients confirm that the service provider is maintaining high security standards.