Automating security operations, or SecOps, is one of the most powerful strategies organizations can employ to protect themselves and their data. All too often, however, they don’t leverage it as well as they could.

Security automation pulls together data from disparate systems to make information more visible and actionable. For example, a solution may not only alert IT teams to a critical vulnerability on enterprise devices but also initiate remediation. It could spot a vulnerability that can be solved with a specific patch, so staff members can determine the best way to solve the problem.

Here are a few of the ways organizations are putting SecOps to work, delivering greater efficiencies and peace of mind to their IT teams.

Education and government organizations are accustomed to strict regulations on data privacy and security. Organizations must stay compliant with regard to how and where they store data; who can access it, how and for what purposes; and how they preserve privacy in data analysis. But this year, leaders in all sectors are taking another look at their data — and, in some cases, deploying master data management solutions — to maintain compliance in remote operations.

One reason for the renewed attention to compliance is that many organizations are collecting new types of data. In schools and colleges, for example, videoconferencing platforms may capture video and audio, along with academic and personal information. Many organizations have managed remote work by expanding their use of cloud computing, which triggers encryption and security protocols for data at rest, in transit and in analysis.

Onsite, organizations are gathering data through technology solutions designed to facilitate safe interactions and maintain social distancing, such as thermal imaging for temperature screenings or video recordings and analytics for occupancy control and contact tracing. All this data must be properly managed and stored.

Savvy IT shops have long understood the need for effective device management, first through mobile device management (MDM) solutions and then via unified endpoint management (UEM) platforms.

Today, more organizations are opting for “modern device management,” a Microsoft-coined term that describes device and application management delivered via cloud-enabled services. Here’s why organizations are making the move and why this model is likely to stick around.

New Year’s resolutions provide an opportunity to focus on important things that may have slipped through the cracks the previous year.