Data is the lifeblood of business. Keeping company information safe and protected is an ever-increasing challenge. Most of all, due to the imbalance of fortunes of those responsible for security and those who seek to gain advantage by exploiting weakness in company defences. For an attacker to be successful, only one attack has to work. However for a defence to be successful, it has to prevent every single attack.
Fortunately, cyber security is not a sprint to the finish line where the winner takes all. For the most part, malicious hackers will always choose the path of least resistance. So in the world of cyber security, being the best is not necessarily important. Making sure you are at least better than average can be a winning strategy.
In order to stay ahead and know where you are going, it’s important to understand where you have been. In this spirit, allow us to outline how data security has evolved and discuss the advantages of the latest trend; data-centric security.
Just as we raise walls in the physical world for protection, creating a security barrier at the boundary of a company network is a logical first step. Since the late 1980s and the early internet boom, the aptly named firewall has been employed to monitor and control the incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. If a packet of data looks suspicious, then access to the network can be denied, preventing any damage.
Firewalls are therefore an essential part of any data security strategy, however, no matter how sophisticated firewalls become, relying on network perimeter security is a risky business. Should a malicious attacker manage to scale the walls of your castle, once inside they would have free rein on your most valued company assets.
Application Level Security & Containers
In a world more connected than ever before, the global economy demands information to be shared not just internally, but outside of organizational boundaries, as well as across borders and continents. Applications created to support these global business processes need to ensure that the data they contain is secure and protected. They achieve this with security at the application level.
A big contributing factor for the dramatically increased productivity of the modern worker has been brought about by the explosion of mobile devices. People now work on the go, and wherever they go, company data goes with them. These security applications, often referred as containers are an authenticated and encrypted area of an employee’s device that separates sensitive corporate information from the owner’s personal data and apps. Containers are often deployed, for example, to ensure that internal email communications are encrypted and secured between employees.
Many secure applications and containers enable work to get done securely and efficiently outside organizational boundaries while providing protection for the company data they contain.
However, when the security is tied to the application or container, what happens when the application is not exactly fit-for-purpose, or an employee finds it too cumbersome to use? Or what happens to the sensitive corporate data when it leaves the container, for example, when an employee forwards a corporate email to a non-employee (i.e no container)? By and large, people always favour convenience, so when an application becomes difficult to use, they will likely look for an alternative way that is more convenient even if it means circumventing the security. Outside the secure application or container, the security dissolves and the data is vulnerable to loss or theft.
The latest trend in data security seeks not only to plug a few of these security holes, but at the same time also enables a number of other surprising business benefits.
Data-centric security shifts the security perimeter once again. This time the perimeter is tightened around what is most important; the data itself. If the data is protected at the byte level, wherever it sits, inside or outside the firewall, wherever it travels, container or not, it will remain secure, independently of how it is used.
Should your corporate firewall be breached, your encrypted sensitive corporate data would be of no use to the feckless assailants. If encrypted corporate information is forwarded outside of your corporate firewall or container, then it would still remain inaccessible to unauthorized users.
Now imagine your data free from selected secure applications or containers. In this new world, any form of communication, any channel, becomes a secure and compliant way of speaking with your clients, conducting business or providing innovative services for new revenue generation streams.
Perhaps now, your corporate walls don’t need to be sky high and you are not limited to using the most secure applications or containers. Now you can leverage a data-centric technology and choose the most appropriate business channels, processes and applications for your business, and this without having to make a trade-off in the name of security. Whatever works best for your business can be the first choice with full confidence that wherever your corporate data goes, the security goes with it.
If you would like to learn more about APrivacy’s data-centric approach to security, please get in touch. From the APrivacy Team.
Digital Security Perfected – APrivacy Ltd. is an award-winning company which combines military-grade data security with a seamless user experience on any platform, any device, anywhere. APrivacy Ltd.’s enabling technology now allows the financial services industry to confidently communicate with clients using their favourite channels leading to increased revenues and reduced costs while meeting the strictest regulatory requirements.
