‘Data is the New Oil!’ – the cliché, repeatedly stated by politicians, journalists and TV pundits as a profound new truth of the Digital Age.

Unfortunately, it’s dangerous and not entirely true. The term was coined by Clive Humby in 2006 when explaining that raw data needs to be ‘refined’ to be useful, like refining crude oil. The meaning morphed, to include the immense commercial value of data in a global digital economy. In the 20th century, oil ruled our world; in this century data rules, hence ‘data is the new oil’.

However, ‘data-is-like-oil’ portrays a dysfunctional view of ourselves and limits our potential as a digital society. Language and labels we choose to give to things are important. They anchor the stories we tell about ourselves personally and collectively.

Perception becomes reality

Think of crude oil. The words that spring to mind are likely to be far from positive: exploitation, hoarding, polluting, trafficking and profiteering. Now think about data. Directly or indirectly, our most valuable data is human data. What happens when you transfer the ‘oil words’ to humans? Human exploitation, human trafficking. You get the picture.

Our language sets expectations for what is acceptable. The ‘data-Is-like-oil’ analogy makes harmful actions excusable. There’s a better analogy. In the 21st Century ‘data is like water’. Want to know why?

1) Water gives life (oil takes it)

Crude oil is zombie soup. It’s the remains of fossilised plants and animals from millions of years ago. Even worse, burning oil to create energy kills people and causes environmental damage. Where oil is death, water is life. It sustains us and enables life as we know it. Used properly, our data can nurture life too, helping us cure disease, improve our self knowledge and mental wellbeing. Used wisely, it’ll enable us to understand each other better and make collective progress beyond our imaginations. Data can help humanity to flourish.

2) Water is abundant (oil is scarce)

When we burn it the oil, it’s forever gone. Meanwhile, water covers 78% of the Earth’s surface, we’ll never run out of it. It’s in the air we breathe. Like water, data is all around us. If you have a smartphone and WiFi, you’re practically bathing in data. In fact everything around us is ‘data’. From the sun rising over the rainforest, to bedouins braving a desert sandstorm, everything becomes digital, if recorded. With the arrival of ubiquitous satellite, sensor and smartphone coverage – the world is now becoming measured and digitized, especially if it involves humans. Data is now exponentially abundant.

3) Water is purified (oil is processed)

Oil is cracked and processed into consumable products. When we consume, we pollute. Water isn’t processed, it’s purified. We remove pollutants. With data, we don’t need to ‘refine’ it to use it. It’s purified. We purify data to give us what we need for a specific use, and no more. The principles of privacy by design and data minimisation are great example of this.

4) Water is distributed (oil is centralised)

In the Industrial Era, a handful of centralised oil refineries supplied global mass production. TV advertisements push the products to everyone with the same message: consume. Water is the opposite: it’s distributed, it’s everywhere there’s life. In the Digital Era ‘distributed’ is the default, from the internet to renewable energy. Products and services will increasingly be personalised based on the data that we hold and control locally, distributed to our smartphone (as a first step).

5) Water is democratic (oil is ‘owned’)

In the 20th Century we used oil for power. Big Oil became very powerful. It’s scarcity and value led to stockpiling and hoarding of ownership. Yet water is the shared property of all living things. Open Data is information about your community shared with everyone in your community. We’re seeing the emergence of a new ‘digital commons’. If data-as-oil is about humans consuming, data-as-water is about humans ‘being’.

6) Water is fresh (oil is stagnant)

By definition, oil is old and ‘dirty’, from spillages to emissions. By contrast, we use water to clean and refresh ourselves. In a digital world, old and dirty data is worthless and when it ‘spills’ it’s a huge mess. Digital information is borne of moving particles and, like water, naturally wants to flow. When data flows from it’s source, it’s fresh, transparent and at it’s most powerful. When data is ours, we can chose to share it as we choose, in real-time. In control as individuals and as a society. Refreshing.

7) Water is human (oil is synthetic)

Oil is a product. It’s a raw material which has shaped a century of human development. Water is literally a part of us. It’s 60% of our bodies and over 70% of our brains. We consider the water that forms us as ours. We’re a flood of living data points, constantly creating new flows with every single heartbeat. Our actions, bio-signs and thoughts are very much ours even as they become digitized. Like water, we excrete an invisible trail of our data everywhere we go. Unlike sewage, the data that we unknowingly leave in our wake is highly valuable and fuels a multi-trillion dollar industry of industries. The internet.

If ‘data-is-the-new-oil’ is obsolete as an analogy, Big Data companies have a choice to make. If they don’t change their business models to a more human-friendly and sustainable data-is-water model, will they face becoming obsolete? It’s time for brands to realise that ‘being human’ is the key to success. It’s no longer 2006, data isn’t oil. Data is water, and human.

Nicola Whiting, Chief Operating Officer, Titania explains why organisations are turning to automated cyber security to win the fight against cyber-criminals and state-sponsored hackers

Anyone searching Google for ‘automated hacking tools’ is immediately offered an array of sites where they can quickly download highly disruptive tools. Many come with user ratings, operator guides and money-back guarantees. They are available to rent, buy, rework or franchise. They appear almost legitimate.

Yet for those hungry for hacking tools, this is just the start. Navigate onto the dark web and you’ll find yourself winding through the digital underworld of cyberspace’s most notorious black market, a Mos Eisley for cyber weapons vendors, creating a booming cyber arms marketplace outside the parameters of the law. Weapons of choice for hackers here tend to be those that dramatically simplify and multiply sophisticated cyber-attacks. These range from automated distributed denial of service (DDoS) ‘Stressor’ tools, which overload networks with reams of data, to dictionary attack tools that generate endless password combinations in a bid to break into private devices.

The increase in availability of automated hacking technologies coincides with a rise in the magnitude of online attacks. In 2015, Symantec found more than 430 million unique pieces of malware, that’s a 36 percent increase on the year before. Last year, the Dyn attack saw 100,000 IoT devices hijacked and used as platforms for launching the largest recorded cyber-attack of its kind. Earlier this year, the WannaCry ransomware attack infected more than 300,000 computers, hitting dozens of healthcare organisations in the US and bringing down multiple trusts within the UK’s National Health Service.

Easily available, automated hacking tools are allowing amateurs to carry out sophisticated cyber-attacks and swelling the armies of hacktivists and cyber criminals. However, the resources needed to defend and mend cyber security vulnerabilities, aren’t keeping up. The largest ever survey of the global cyber security workforce predicts a shortfall of 1.8 million cyber security workers by 2022. This isn’t just a problem for the future, Indeed, the world’s number one jobs site, reports that employer demand for cyber security roles is three times higher than candidate interest. Security experts are expensive to hire, costly to train and at risk of getting headhunted – often just when they’ve got to grips with your system!

As automated hacking tools make attacks more likely and the cyber skills gap weakens our traditional defences, we need to find smarter ways to protect ourselves from the rising threat. This is something that larger businesses and military organisations are already addressing. These organisations are on the frontline of the cyber war, facing thousands of attacks every day. To give some perspective, towards the end of 2016, the U.S. Air Force, whose network consists of more than 1 million airborne and ground-based networked computer systems, estimated there were more than 1 million cyber attacks on its network on a daily basis.

In order to contend with the scale of such a rising threat, organisations such as the U.S. Air Force, the FBI, Deloitte, PayPal and KPMG have been amongst the first to implement ‘intelligent’ cyber technologies within their organisations to ensure their networks and computer systems are fortified against the most vicious cyber-attacks thrown at them.

Large organisations and the military are not the only ones targeted by machine-aided hackers. In the UK alone, small to medium sized businesses were subject to an average of 230,000 cyber-attacks each across 2016. The rise of automated cyber-attacks means that every organisation with a connection to the internet is under threat. Therefore, the adoption of automated cyber security technologies, machines fighting machines, is vital.

The cyber security skills gap means we don’t have the people to constantly reinforce cyber defences. Instead, we can use machines to conduct rapid, detailed and accurate audits.
This enables organisations to free their cyber security teams from firefighting and engage them in strategy, implementation and active defence. How do we know that automated tools can save time, money and resources? The real proof is in the application. The WannaCry ransomware attack in May led to operations being cancelled in 48 NHS trusts across the UK. Yet those parts of the NHS using intelligent autonomous cyber security ‘audits’ to find system risks were largely unaffected. The autonomously gathered intelligence, used alongside other tools, ensured preventative measures were in place to successfully protect themselves. Finding the right combination of automation tools, in an industry famed for its “smoke and mirrors”, can be its own challenge – but it’s one worth pursuing.

Intelligent automated systems can now replicate the work of high-level security professionals, analysing networks, systems and devices with the speed and effectiveness of expert security teams. This technology is putting the defenders on a level playing field with the increasingly automated attackers and can enable organisations of all sizes to compete with the next generation of cyber-attacks.