In any data project, security must be considered from day zero. It’s not just a best practice—it’s a requirement to ensure the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of an organization’s most valuable assets.
Often, initiatives related to analytics, data lakes, visualization, or cloud migration are seen as purely technical or functional processes. It’s only at the implementation stage that the need to “add” security arises—usually because an issue has already occurred with access, auditing, permissions, or encryption. The result? Costly solutions, delayed patches, or uncovered gaps.

In other words, a reactive approach implies higher costs, a larger risk surface, and a more difficult-to-manage architecture.
This article will explore why it’s so important to integrate cybersecurity from the start and the most common approaches to make it a reality.
Why there can be no innovation projects without cybersecurity hours
Why cybersecurity must be at the heart of every data project
Today, data doesn’t reside in a single location or get consumed from a single point. It’s shared across clouds, stored in multiple formats, combined with artificial intelligence, and used in contexts with dynamic and distributed access.
For all these reasons, it’s increasingly clear that no innovation project can happen without cybersecurity. Even initiatives originally intended as migrations, automation, or application evolution ultimately incorporate protections against access risks, data exposure, or lack of traceability.
Thinking of security as an integral part of data architecture from the outset means considering information classification (knowing which data is sensitive, confidential, regulated, or public), access and privilege management (defining who can access, from where, and with what permissions), monitoring and detecting suspicious behavior, and governance—establishing clear policies for data use, storage, retention, and deletion.
AI, automation, and new risk vectors
Incorporating artificial intelligence into data projects adds a new layer of complexity. Models are fed historical data and trained with information from multiple sources. If these sources are not secure or well-governed, the risk transfers to the model’s behavior.
Additionally, automated data flows, training pipelines, and agents performing tasks without human intervention open the door to new vulnerabilities.
Embedded credentials, service accesses, and overly broad default permissions can become attack vectors if not carefully controlled.
Simplifying cybersecurity in data projects
For all these reasons, at Nubiral we recommend advancing with a coherent, modular, business-aligned strategy. A 360º approach recognizes that governance, observability, AI, infrastructure, and security are all parts of the same system.
Among other elements, this approach is based on:
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Zero Trust: No user, device, or service is trusted by default.
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Identity-based Access Management (IAM): Strict least-permission policies, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and session control.
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Robust encryption: Both in transit and at rest, protecting critical data at all times.
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Intelligent monitoring: AI- and machine learning-based tools that detect anomalies in real time.
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Automated incident response: To reduce reaction time and quickly mitigate impacts.
Conclusions
The main takeaway is that there is no reliable data without security.
Data governance, observability, automation, and security can no longer be considered separate layers—they are part of the same ecosystem, where every technical decision affects the exposure of the environment.
All data projects must include a transversal security layer combining secure architecture services, access control, identity management, and regulatory compliance.
In the real world, there is no data project that doesn’t eventually require cybersecurity. Our proposal is simple: include it from the beginning, in a planned, modular way aligned with business objectives. Data is the asset. Cybersecurity is its guarantor.
Do you consider it essential to incorporate cybersecurity from day zero in all your data projects? We’re aligned. Get in touch to start working together: Schedule your meeting!
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