How secure is your corporate & customer data?

In today’s business, sensitive data needs to be shared quickly and securely. The increasing requirement to collaborate on valuable information with users, whether they are local or remote, means that sensitive data will be consistently at risk. With the rising sophistication and frequency of threats, it’s become essential that information is secured no matter where it is, how it’s sent, or who it’s being shared with.

“The combination of sharing valuable information and collaboration between users worldwide leads directly to higher security risks.”
-Jon Skinner, Marketing, Celestix Networks

The Challenge

A critical part of business operations is the efficient distribution of information between employees and nonemployees such as contractors, vendors or partners.  Organizations depend upon users being able to collaborate easily, share information quickly and make considered business decisions based upon their analysis.  The challenge is how to easily secure sensitive information while making it available to legitimate users when and where they need it. 

The sharing of information often means that businesses introduce a high level of risk simply by using every day messaging systems. For example, attaching a confidential document to an email is an easy and efficient way of transferring information, but how secure is it? If the document is highly confidential and contains valuable information; what protection methods are used while the file is in transit, and after it's received?  The result of insufficient data protection methods can lead to damaging data leakage.

So what's the real impact of data leakage?

In a recent survey conducted by Forrester titled The Value of Corporate Secrets, the associated cost of a data leak derived from a rogue employee stealing sensitive company documents was estimated to be at least $360,000 per incident. The cost of a data leak from an outside business partner losing or abusing sensitive information was estimated to be in excess of $115,000 per incident.  These are just a few of the high dollar examples, other threats with a hefty cost include outside attackers, lost laptops or smart phones and common employee errors.

Breaches of data security don't just have direct financial impact. They can also have an indirect impact from bad press, lower customer confidence, brand and reputation damage and potential fines imposed by regulatory authorities.

Think Data-Centric Security

Securing your network, devices and applications is one step in the overall security chain - but what about securing the data itself? Encrypting an entire laptop (including the operating system and other applications) is time consuming, slows system resources significantly and doesn't help to protect data when it's sent and worked on by different users.  It only addresses the loss of the device and not the necessary protection methods for the file itself.

Transmitting data securely from point A to point B is just one step in its journey - but what happens when it reaches point B, the recipient? How do you ensure that the data, now it has safely reached its destination, is only accessed by the recipient you want to use it and not by anyone else? To use the information it has to be opened in a decrypted state, leaving the possibility for mistakes or a malicious disclosure.

By applying data-centric security, companies can ensure that sensitive information has a persistently applied level of security around the document itself, thereby keeping it safe wherever it needs to go. Protection is not dependent on location, domain or the network and the file can be exchanged by email, USB memory drive, FTP or any other method with confidence that the data is protected at all times.

This also means that additional layers of security can be introduced to enhance the data owner's ability to control what can happen to the information, who can access it, when they can access it and where. With these parameters in place, companies can define everything needed to ensure data security, both internally and externally.  It provides for complete flexibility with enough granularities to cope with the many different levels of access for multiple parties.

Introducing Celestix BSA

As a global leader in securing business information, Celestix Networks is bringing to market the BSA appliance to specifically address the critical data protection challenges businesses face.  Celestix BSA is an integrated appliance solution that delivers unified data-centric security with:

• Information Rights Management - ensuring the right people get the right level of access to the appropriate files
• Secure Managed File Transfer - industry leading 2048bit encryption applied to both the transfer and to the file itself.
• Persistent Data File Encryption - Protection applied to any file type, any transport method and while in storage.
• Auditing & Compliance Reporting - Supports regulatory compliance by providing reporting and audit trail functions of the file activities

For the first time your sensitive information can be made available for distribution and collaboration on your terms, without the risk of interception, employee errors, unintentional loss or theft.  Celestix BSA - keep control of your sensitive data no matter where it goes or who it's being shared with.

For help in assessing how your business can maximize availability and security of sensitive data while minimizing risks please contact Celestix Networks at datasecurity@celestix.com or visit www.celestix.com.