WHEN IT COMES TO PROTECTING DATA – TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE CLOUDS

Featured article by Nigel Walker is the Chief Technology Officer of Global Data Sentinel

In the last five years, Cloud hosts such as Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, Box and Dropbox have become increasingly popular and cost effective for storing and sharing data. That said, data theft has never been greater with network and cloud security becoming more porous. As the need for information sharing increases, the network domain and cloud-based model become more inadequate.

Your data isn’t secure as data centers across businesses, institutions and government agencies are hacked into on a daily basis. Furthermore, cloud servers have proven to be no more secure than one’s own network, and have the added concern of giving access to all of the stored data to the cloud vendors’ IT staff

Relentless increases in IT costs are forcing the enterprise to adopt at least some cloud technology, even at the risk of decreased security. Companies can save money, time and valuable resources when using a cloud-based network. Employees can access data from anywhere and from a multiple of devices. The cloud provides simplified data recovery solutions and access across devices. A reduced amount of IT resources are needed to manage a cloud-based network as there is no hardware to put in place. So it is no wonder that more and more businesses are headed toward the cloud.

Organizations need a cloud solution which provides transparency and control over their data, and ensures the privacy and security of those data assets at all times – even on a multi-tenant platform. No single cloud proposition provides an end-to-end solution, and most are focused mainly on storage of data with limited procedural and operational visibility to the client. And, add the fact that in most organizations, data will also reside on premise and on devices as well.

Even when cloud solutions address these issues, there still remains a number of vulnerabilities that can affect the storage and accessibility of an organization’s data in that external IT staff has access to all stored data; unprotected protocols and interfaces are used to transmit and store data; a single third party has control of all security layers and compliance; and sharing and security permission can easily be moved outside of the company’s network.

Global Data Sentinel (GDS) offers a total security solution, which is ready for deployment on cloud networks, as well as corporate networks. It is able to provide control and audit of all data, email and files across foreign domains – no matter where it goes or where it resides – with detailed data-access behavioral analytics. It can create and enforce a zero knowledge environment for the IT staff, outsourced IT providers and Cloud vendors. It lowers IT costs, enables secure data migration to the Cloud, proactively and dramatically reduces risk of data theft internally and externally. In other words, GDS is a ‘Cloud Enabler’ in that companies can comfortably move to the cloud with confidence knowing that they have greater control, secure protection and reduced costs. By encrypting all of the data and having that greater level of security travel with the data between existing networks and devices, only releasing the information when requested by authorized personnel using secure biometric enhanced access systems. It allows clients to track where files have been, who is allowed to view the data, and proactively and dramatically reduces risk of data theft internally and externally with detailed data-access behavioral analytics.

The system can actually learn a user’s behavior pattern and responds if a user is accessing or using files in an uncharacteristic way. It also monitors user behavior, creating guidelines that can be fine-tuned based on activity by job role, calendar events, etc. creating a detailed tamper-proof audit trail – nothing is invisible. Alerts are immediately sent if unusual activity is detected and the system is able to scramble a user’s keys, revoke access and shut down the account.

The security capabilities of a chosen cloud service provider become less of a concern, as Global Data Sentinel allows organizations to take full control of their data. Should any part of the chain become vulnerable, the layer of protection provided by GDS is still safeguarding the data.

Data is always secure wherever it is stored or transmitted, with true zero-knowledge privacy and revocable permissions – only the organization the data belongs to has full control of the content.

Finally, tamperproof audit trails and true data owner control allows the organization to have full visibility of their corporate data, with the ability to monitor and amend access permission levels.

Nigel Walker is the Chief Technology Officer of Global Data Sentinel (GDS), an end-to-end proactive cyber security platform designed for the enterprise.  GDS dramatically increases the security of corporate data across any network and cloud, while proprietary hardware integrates with GDS software to secure data streaming to and from any device.  www.globaldatasentinel.com