Stephanie Balaouras

Vice President, Research Director Serving Security & Risk Professionals

Read Stephanie's blog posts

Stephanie serves Security & Risk Professionals. She leads a team of analysts who provide research and advisory services on topics like IT security frameworks; governance, risk, and compliance (GRC); identity and access management (IAM); application security; data security; and IT infrastructure security. She also provides Forrester's coverage of specific risk topics including business continuity, IT continuity/disaster recovery, and backup and recovery.

Previous Work Experience

Stephanie has more than 12 years of experience in BC/DR, backup and recovery, and information storage industries. Prior to joining the Security & Risk team, Stephanie was a principal analyst on Forrester's Infrastructure & Operations team, where she was instrumental in the development of Forrester's research and offerings in continuity, availability, and information storage and protection.

Prior to joining Forrester, Stephanie was a senior analyst with Yankee Group, where she provided insight on technology trends to key system, storage, and information protection vendors and consultative advice on strategic and tactical initiatives. Before Yankee Group, Stephanie worked at EMC, first as a technical architect and then as a senior education and productivity consultant. As a technical architect, she articulated EMC's value to partners and customers and designed solutions to meet customer and new market opportunities. As an education and productivity consultant, she managed and supported complex technical training programs for business and practice managers in EMC's Technology Solutions Group. Prior to EMC, Stephanie worked at Accenture as a consultant, focusing on the implementation of business applications (SAP, PeopleSoft) for global businesses.

Education

Stephanie holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and finance and investments from Babson College.

Print Bio

Stephanie Balaouras

Vice President, Research Director Serving Security & Risk Professionals

Read Stephanie's blog posts

Previous Work Experience

Education

Stephanie holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and finance and investments from Babson College.

Research Coverage

Stephanie Balaouras's Research

Most RecentMost Popular

For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Defend Your Digital Business From Cyberattacks Using Forrester's Zero Trust Model

Executive Overview: The Security Architecture And Operations Playbook

September 19, 2017Stephanie Balaouras, Heidi Shey

In today's threat landscape, skilled, well-funded, organized cybercriminals are working to steal your data — the lifeblood of your digital business — in pursuit of economic, political, or military gain. To combat this, security leaders need Forrester's Zero Trust Model of information security. With Zero Trust, you can develop robust detection and incident response capabilities to protect your company's vital digital business ecosystem. In our security architecture and operations playbook, we show you how to defend your customers with the Zero Trust Model. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.
For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Protect Your Intellectual Property And Customer Data From Theft And Abuse

Executive Overview: The Data Security And Privacy Playbook

July 12, 2017Stephanie Balaouras

Data is the lifeblood of today's digital businesses, and sophisticated cybercriminals are determined to steal it. Forrester's data security and privacy playbook shows S&R pros how to navigate the complex market for data security and privacy solutions and take a holistic approach. Our Data Security And Control Framework, integrated with our Zero Trust Model, guides you through major changes to your processes for defining, dissecting, and defending data. This playbook arms you with an arsenal of technologies and services that help you design and implement effective data security. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy. We revised this edition to factor in new events and data.
For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Assess Your Network Security Architecture With Forrester's Zero Trust Maturity Model

Assessment: The Security Architecture And Operations Playbook

March 8, 2017Stephanie Balaouras, Peter Cerrato, John Kindervag

As the number of breached records continues to climb, more than ever, security and risk (S&R) pros need to take steps to overhaul their business' traditional infrastructure and invest in Zero Trust practices and technologies. As threat actors continue to rapidly improve their capabilities in 2017, adherence to outdated security practices will only hurt your business and your customers. This report provides a framework with which to evaluate your network security architecture against the Zero Trust principles that matter most.
For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Zero Trust Security Metrics That Matter To The Business

Performance Management: The Security Architecture And Operations Playbook

February 9, 2017Stephanie Balaouras

Forrester's Zero Trust (ZT) Model of information security demands that security teams eliminate the dangerous trust assumptions underpinning perimeter-based security architectures. When you embrace a ZT mindset, you assume that malicious actors have already infiltrated and are in the process of stealing your valuable data. Thus, ZT metrics should answer two fundamental questions for business and security leaders: 1) Do we have a breach and 2) what sensitive data have criminals exfiltrated? In this report, we review the ZT metrics that answer these questions and their implications.
For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Navigate The Future Of Mobile Security

Vision: The Mobile Security Playbook

February 6, 2017Stephanie Balaouras, Andras Cser

The speed at which: 1) employees have adopted mobile applications and 2) DevOps methodologies are increasing application releases has forced security and risk (S&R) pros to revamp how they approach mobile security in mobile apps. S&R pros can no longer play the role of a curmudgeon by locking down mobile apps. In this report, Forrester outlines the shifts in mobile security S&R pros have to embrace to ensure the value of mobile moments and provide security that allows the new mobile mind shift to take place.

For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Protect Your Intellectual Property And Customer Data From Theft And Abuse

Executive Overview: The Data Security And Privacy Playbook

July 12, 2017Stephanie Balaouras

Data is the lifeblood of today's digital businesses, and sophisticated cybercriminals are determined to steal it. Forrester's data security and privacy playbook shows S&R pros how to navigate the complex market for data security and privacy solutions and take a holistic approach. Our Data Security And Control Framework, integrated with our Zero Trust Model, guides you through major changes to your processes for defining, dissecting, and defending data. This playbook arms you with an arsenal of technologies and services that help you design and implement effective data security. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy. We revised this edition to factor in new events and data.
For Security & Risk Professionals

REPORT: Defend Your Digital Business From Cyberattacks Using Forrester's Zero Trust Model

Executive Overview: The Security Architecture And Operations Playbook

September 19, 2017Stephanie Balaouras, Heidi Shey

In today's threat landscape, skilled, well-funded, organized cybercriminals are working to steal your data — the lifeblood of your digital business — in pursuit of economic, political, or military gain. To combat this, security leaders need Forrester's Zero Trust Model of information security. With Zero Trust, you can develop robust detection and incident response capabilities to protect your company's vital digital business ecosystem. In our security architecture and operations playbook, we show you how to defend your customers with the Zero Trust Model. This is an update of a previously published report; Forrester reviews and updates it periodically for continued relevance and accuracy.
For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Justifying The Business Case For Business Technology Resiliency

June 11, 2012Rachel A. Dines, Stephanie Balaouras

This report outlines Forrester's guidance for a business technology resiliency (BTR) business case. This is a critical step when securing funding because management is often reluctant to fund investments in BTR — including backup, high availability, and disaster recovery — because they represent cost avoidance, rather than a return on investment. But in today's age of 24x7x365 global operations and unrelenting customer demand, downtime can threaten your competitive advantage and erode market share. To help infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals overcome dangerous and outdated thinking, this report builds the business case for BTR and outlines seven steps that I&O professionals must take to successfully secure funding for BTR initiatives.
For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: 2008 Trends In Backup And Data Protection

April 2, 2008Stephanie Balaouras

Backup remains as problematic as ever, but there are several emerging trends in technology and functional convergence that should address some of the biggest challenges: increasing capacities, shrinking backup windows, increasing recovery point requirements, and limited budgets. This report takes a look at the trends that are changing traditional backup and that will affect purchasing decisions over the next 12 months.
For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

REPORT: Market Overview: Backup Software-As-A-Service

The First Of Many IT Ops-Focused SaaS Offerings

February 19, 2008Stephanie Balaouras

Backup is a struggle for both enterprises and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). It's a complex ecosystem of backup software, networks, servers, disk arrays, and tape systems. Many firms have difficulty completing backups in the time available, and a large number of backups fail or complete with errors. In addition, there are gaps in backup coverage. SMBs and enterprises often don't protect corporate PCs, and enterprises often don't protect machines at remote offices. Given the headaches associated with backup and the gaps in coverage, many firms are considering an online backup service. An online backup is just the first step toward the delivery of multiple infrastructure-related services — such as disaster recovery, archiving, and security — as software-as-a-service (SaaS).