Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Data Security Analyst

💰 $ - $

SecurityDataITCompliance

🎯 Role Definition

The Data Security Analyst is responsible for protecting an organization's data assets across on‑premises and cloud environments by implementing data protection strategies, monitoring access and usage, detecting and responding to data incidents, and ensuring compliance with data privacy and security regulations (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, etc.). This role blends hands‑on technical controls (DLP, encryption, IAM, SIEM), policy development, risk assessments, and close collaboration with engineering, product, legal, and business stakeholders to reduce data exposure and preserve trust.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Information Security Analyst or Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst transitioning to data protection specialization
  • Data Analyst / BI Analyst with strong security interest and knowledge of data governance
  • Compliance Analyst or Privacy Analyst moving into technical data protection work

Advancement To:

  • Senior Data Security Analyst / Lead Data Protection Analyst
  • Data Security Engineer / Data Protection Architect
  • Security Architect (Data-focused) or Principal Security Engineer
  • Head of Data Security, Director of Security or Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)

Lateral Moves:

  • Privacy / Data Protection Officer (DPO)
  • Cloud Security Engineer with a data protection focus
  • Vendor Risk Manager / Third-Party Risk Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and maintain enterprise-wide Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions to identify, monitor, and protect sensitive data (PII, PHI, financial, IP) across endpoints, email, cloud storage, and collaboration platforms; tune rules to reduce false positives while preserving detection coverage.
  • Conduct comprehensive data discovery and data classification exercises to build and maintain an authoritative inventory of sensitive data stores, data flows (data mapping), and data repositories across on-premises systems and cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP).
  • Develop, maintain, and operationalize data protection controls such as tokenization, data masking, encryption at rest and in transit, and key management (KMS) to meet regulatory and contractual requirements.
  • Manage identity and access governance for sensitive data by implementing role-based access control (RBAC), least privilege access reviews, privileged access management (PAM), and periodic entitlement recertifications in collaboration with IAM teams.
  • Lead or participate in data security risk assessments, privacy impact assessments (DPIAs), and vendor/third‑party data protection assessments to identify risks and recommend remediation plans that align with NIST CSF, ISO 27001, or other frameworks.
  • Configure, tune, and operate SIEM and security telemetry for data-centric detection use cases; create rules, alerts and automated playbooks to quickly detect anomalous data access, exfiltration, or unauthorized sharing.
  • Investigate data security incidents and potential data breaches: perform triage, forensic analysis, root cause identification, containment, remediation, and prepare incident reports for stakeholders and regulators if required.
  • Define, document and enforce data handling policies, data retention and disposal policies, acceptable use policies, and standards for secure data sharing, collaborating with legal, privacy, and business teams to ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, GLBA and sector-specific regulations.
  • Implement and maintain automated controls and guardrails for cloud data stores (S3, Blob, GCS), databases (RDS, BigQuery), and SaaS apps (Office365, Google Workspace, Salesforce) to prevent misconfiguration and public exposure.
  • Build and maintain dashboards, KPIs and executive reporting for data security posture, incidents, DLP metrics, and compliance status to inform risk decisions and investment prioritization.
  • Collaborate closely with data engineering and platform teams to embed security into CI/CD pipelines, including infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), secure configuration baselines, and pre-deployment security checks.
  • Perform vulnerability assessments and remediation validation for data infrastructure and integrations; coordinate patching and mitigation for data-related threats and CVEs.
  • Lead privacy-by-design and security-by-design reviews for new products/features to ensure data minimization, purpose limitation, and appropriate protection measures are implemented from the outset.
  • Develop and deliver training and awareness programs for product teams, business users, and new hires to reduce risky data handling behaviors and promote secure data sharing practices.
  • Manage encryption key lifecycle and access to cryptographic material, including key rotation, escrow, and logging of key usage to meet audit and compliance requirements.
  • Maintain documentation and operational runbooks for data security procedures, incident response playbooks, and evidence required for audits and regulatory inquiries.
  • Drive continuous improvement by evaluating new data protection technologies (DLP vendors, CASB, UEBA, cloud-native tools) and recommending pilots or roll-outs based on ROI and risk reduction.
  • Support legal and compliance in responding to data subject requests, regulatory inquiries, and breach notifications by providing technical analysis and evidence of controls and remediation activities.
  • Orchestrate data remediation efforts (secure deletion, anonymization, masking) for legacy systems, data migrations, M&A activity, and end-of-life data in accordance with retention policies and legal hold requirements.
  • Partner with vendor and procurement teams to evaluate third-party solutions and contractual security obligations; negotiate data protection clauses and monitor vendor compliance with agreed controls.
  • Implement and enforce secure data-sharing mechanisms (secure APIs, encrypted transfer, federated data access) and monitor for unauthorized exports or bulk extraction of sensitive records.
  • Create and automate periodic evidence packages, control tests, and support internal and external audits (SOC 2, ISO, PCI-DSS) related to data protection and access controls.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP) implementation and tuning (Symantec DLP, Proofpoint, Forcepoint, Microsoft Purview).
  • Data discovery and classification tools and methods (sensitive data scanning, regex, ML-assisted classification).
  • Cloud data security (AWS S3/Athena, Azure Blob, GCP BigQuery): secure configurations, encryption, IAM policies, and cloud-native DLP features.
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) best practices, RBAC, and entitlement review processes.
  • Encryption technologies and key management (KMS, HSMs, envelope encryption, TLS/SSL).
  • SIEM and log analytics (Splunk, Elastic, QRadar) for building data-centric detection and alerting.
  • Incident response and forensic analysis techniques for data breach investigation and root cause analysis.
  • Regulatory and compliance knowledge: GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, and data privacy principles.
  • Scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, Bash) to automate detection, remediation, and reporting tasks.
  • SQL and familiarity with relational and NoSQL databases to query datasets involved in incidents or audits.
  • Infrastructure-as-Code and cloud automation (Terraform, CloudFormation) to enforce security controls as code.
  • API security and secure data sharing patterns (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, signed URLs).
  • Vulnerability scanning and secure configuration assessment tools for data platforms.
  • Experience with data protection techniques: tokenization, anonymization, pseudonymization, and data masking.
  • Familiarity with security frameworks: NIST CSF, CIS Controls, ISO 27001 and how they map to data security controls.

Soft Skills

  • Strong analytical and investigative mindset with attention to detail for incident triage and root cause analysis.
  • Excellent communication skills to translate complex technical security details into business-risk language for stakeholders and executives.
  • Cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management — ability to work effectively with engineering, legal, product, and compliance teams.
  • Project management skills to drive remediation projects and control implementations across multiple teams.
  • Prioritization and risk-based decision making under pressure during incidents or audits.
  • Training and facilitation skills to deliver security awareness and adoption programs.
  • Continuous learning mindset to stay current with evolving data protection threats, tools, and regulations.
  • Integrity and discretion when handling sensitive data and privacy-related matters.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, Data Science with security focus, or related field.
  • Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CIPP/US or CIPP/E, GIAC (GLEG, GCIH), or vendor certifications (Microsoft Security, AWS Security Specialty).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Information Systems / IT
  • Data Science / Data Engineering
  • Law or Public Policy with privacy specialization (for privacy-heavy roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of experience in information security, data protection, or related roles; may vary by company size and sector.

Preferred: 5+ years of direct experience implementing and operating data protection controls (DLP, encryption, IAM) in enterprise environments and documented experience responding to data incidents, performing DPIAs, and supporting regulatory compliance reviews.

Explore More Careers