Much to the dismay of risk managers, chief executives and CIOs across the industry, insurance companies have become targets for hackers attempting to access personally identifiable information (PII) for policyholders. As gatekeepers protecting millions of birth dates, medical histories, home addresses, names of spouses and children, purchasing preferences and even Social Security numbers, insurers are high-value targets for identity thieves. Recent breaches at Anthem and Primera are promoting a fair amount of fear on the part of the public, and insurers are scrambling to lock the front and back doors standing between hackers and vulnerable data assets, but this task is proving easier said than done.

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Cloud-based solutions compound the problem by forcing insurers to begin to think about securing the data itself, instead of just the front and back doors. Insurers historically have had a crusty exterior and soft underbelly, meaning the majority of efforts were put into firewalls and keeping unwanted visitors out of critical systems. With cloud-based solutions, insurers now need to take security architecture and decisions to the data level as it increasingly no longer resides within an insurer's four physical walls. Thus, insurers more than ever must be data masters.