As data breaches and privacy regulations proliferate, protecting sensitive customer and employee data is top of mind for many enterprise leaders. During this Cybersecurity Awareness Month, there are several key trends that organizations need to focus on to help improve data protection.

Maintaining data privacy today is more complex than ever before. Companies now operate in hybrid cloud environments where data flows between on-premises systems and multiple cloud providers. Valuable data can be scattered across legacy databases, software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps and cloud data stores. Keeping track of where sensitive information resides and properly securing it is a monumental challenge.

But what specifically should companies focus on to better secure sensitive customer and employee data? Here are the top trends:

1. Data privacy and data security are intertwined

Akiba Saeedi, VP of data security product management at IBM, told SDxCentral that as organizations move further into hybrid cloud operating models, data privacy and data security are becoming even more closely intertwined.

To underscore that point he noted that most data breaches involve sensitive personally identifiable information (PII).

2. Busting the cloud security myth can help improve data privacy

A misconception that many business leaders still hold is that storing sensitive data in the cloud introduces additional risk. Saeedi noted that some enterprise managers assume that cloud data stores cannot provide the required level of security and compliance.

"The reality is that modernized data security solutions are designed to protect data as it moves across both on-premises and cloud, creating strong data security protections regardless of environment," Saeedi said.

3. Data breaches have a cascading impact

Data breaches pose one of the biggest data privacy risks to organizations. Saeedi noted that data breaches cost organizations nearly $4.5 million per incident, with a cascading effect on resources, profits and reputation.

A single breach can be financially and reputationally devastating. As more data moves to the cloud, enterprises must rigorously secure it against breach threats with layered defenses.

4. It's critical to discover where all your data resides

When it comes to data privacy, it's not easy to protect data that you don't know you have.

Saeedi noted that in order to keep pace with the explosion of data organizations are charged with protecting, there is a need to focus on enhancing the discovery, classifying and cataloging of sensitive and regulated structured and unstructured data residing both on premises and in the cloud.

Knowing exactly where sensitive data lives, especially "shadow" data in new cloud apps, is essential. Data discovery, classification and cataloging should be top priorities.

5. Monitor and analyze behavior around sensitive data

Sensitive data that needs to be kept private should not be left unmonitored. After all, if you don't know how data is being used, then it's hard to know that it is being misused. It's a best practice to create a baseline of normal data access patterns to more easily detect suspicious anomalies.

"Data activity monitoring and advanced user behavior analytics can help discover unusual activity around sensitive data," Saeedi said.

6. Consider data security posture management tools

Adopt modern tools that continuously monitor your various environments to identify sensitive data and vulnerabilities that may have been overlooked.

"Newer technologies such as data security posture management can help find unknown and sensitive data across the cloud, including structured and unstructured assets within cloud service providers, SaaS properties and data lakes," Saeedi said.

7. Recognize complexity and deal with it

It's clear that data privacy and compliance requirements are here to stay.

With hybrid cloud environments now commonplace, Saeedi noted that many organizations have highly complex requirements for both data privacy and compliance, particularly in highly regulated industries.

Juggling these complex regulations across on-premises and cloud environments will likely only become more difficult over time. Enterprises need to ensure their data privacy strategies can adapt to evolving compliance rules.