Data has been called the most valuable resource of an organization. It’s probably not surprising then to learn that organizations are storing more and more data on their servers, storage devices, and cloud repositories.

Most of this stored data can be classified as unstructured data – which is the file-based data such as word processing files, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, media files, and other files that don’t reside as records in a database.

Regarding this stored, unstructured data, according to multiple published sources, most of the data collected and stored by organizations is simply unknown and unused. And by most of the data, they’re referring to between 80-90% of it. This unknown and unused data is sometimes referred to as “dark data.”

Without proactive data administration, an organization’s stored data evolves into a state of entropy for both the data itself and the data’s associated permissions and security, leading the IT staff to keep everything “just to be safe” including orphaned data that no one seems to own.   

And while the monetary costs for storing all of this data might not be initially worrisome to some organizations, it’s the risks of not knowing what is being stored and what could possibly be breached that should be very worrisome.

File Reporter inventories Microsoft network file systems and 365 cloud application libraries to deliver the detailed file storage organizations need to both optimize and to secure their networks and Microsoft 365 cloud application storage.

Engineered for enterprise level reporting, File Reporter gathers information on the data, including the dark data that the organization is storing. This can be petabytes of data located in the millions of files and folders scattered among the network storage devices and the Microsoft 365 cloud libraries storing files for OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online and Teams.

Flexible reporting, filtering, and querying options then present the exact findings needed to demonstrate compliance or take corrective action. File Reporter identifies which users have access to sensitive information, the size of the files, when users last accessed or modified the files, the locations of duplicate files, and much more.

With an increasing number of analysts sounding alarms of the risks associated with storing sensitive unstructured data, File Reporter has been identified as a tool capable of helping organizations identify what files are being stored, their relevancy, and their vulnerability, so that these organizations have the information they need to take corrective measures.

More information: 

Join our Data Discovery Community. Have technical questions about Data Discover products? Visit the Data Discovery discussion forum. Keep up with the latest Tips & Info about Data Discovery. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog. Log in or register to comment below.