Reducing the cost and complexity of consolidation

An Industry Insight feature with SafeNet

Chris Fedde discussed the best practice strategies for ensuring efficient business processes and security during consolidation.

The ecomonic distress of the financial community has added new dimensions to the protection of sensitive information. Always of the highest priority, the financial community has to protect the privacy of personal information and institutional data while securely transacting all forms of commerce. Now, with consolidations and take-overs occurring at a breathtaking pace, there is an even greater challenge – combining institutions in a manner that is rapid and cost effective without jeopardizing the sensitive data. It is more important than ever to find ways to cut costs, retain customers, maintain business processes, and demonstrate a positive return on investment to stakeholders even while incompatible systems and infrastructures are being merged.

For years, financial institutions have focused on security solutions that thwart the ever-increasing number of serious threats to sensitive data assets. However, during transitional times, institutions are once again vulnerable to threats as data is consolidated amongst multiple heterogenous systems that are complex, often incompatible and difficult to secure. 

Over the coming months, as IT departments bring together these vast amounts of data, consolidate IT systems and develop new business processes, they need to consider solutions that provide business efficiency, scalability and continuity of information.  And, with a heightened level of scrutiny on technology purchase decisions in the areas of goverance, risk management and compliance, it is important for financial institutions to take an enterprise approach to establishing their new combined infrastructure to maximize IT investments and protect sensitive data.

In the past, most organizations were able to establish a perimeter defense, employing firewalls, intrusion detection and antivirus software to keep threats to information at bay and meet compliance requirements. But now, with more than 50 percent of security breaches perpetrated internally, perimeter security mechanisms are no longer sufficient for addressing the many threats to sensitive data. Additionally, companies are required to extend their data infrastructure across business units, partners, suppliers, customers and an increasingly mobile workforce. The outsider is now an insider, and, here again, the perimeter security is no longer sufficient.

All this is further exacerbated when multiple, disparate products create security gaps and heterogenous environments, which are costly to manage, create vulnerabilities and inhibit business.

Protecting the information withinin the enterprise is the only way to provide core to edge protection. Encrypted information, integrated under a centralized security platform, provides seamless, cost-efficient management of data across databases, applications, networks and endpoint devices. Securing data at all times – at rest, in motion, and in use.

Protecting the information within the enterprise extends security and compliance across all systems where data resides – network, application, database, or storage. The overall security model will determine the points of protection, which then determines the scope of the integration task. Typically, modes of implementation for a data protection solution vary in terms of security model, but each have strong commonalities that represent the essential building blocks of data privacy implementations:

• Cryptographic operations
• Secure key management
• Specialized, dedicated hardware
• Authentication and authorization
• Logging, auditing, and management
• Backup and recovery

In essence, an effective and comprehensive data protection solution must follow the data from the core, where key data repositories exist, to the edge, where the data is used. When selecting a data protection solution – especially in times of transition or consolidation –you should know the fundamental elements that make up the solution, be sure to leverage standards-based technologies and ensure that the proper planning and cooperation occurs within and across the enterprise. Doing so will ensure an effective solution that meets security requirements, reduces the overall complexity, management, and maintenance costs of the organization’s IT infrastructure, and provides a foundation for addressing future data protection needs, business processes and regulatory compliance requirements.

Chris Fedde was named President and Chief Operating Officer of SafeNet in October 2006. Throughout his tenure at SafeNet, which began in February of 2001 as Director of Corporate Product Management and Business Development, Fedde has been a key contributor to building the company’s security presence in the Federal Government and the financial community. During this time, SafeNet has seen a significant increase in demand for the company’s technology solutions and managed services.