Advice from Micro Focus experts to strengthen your privacy

Sandra Loyd

The SolarWinds hack, which also affects U.S. government agencies, also highlights the need for organizations to be prepared for the possibility of cybercriminals entering their systems. Micro Focus experts summarize how to make sensitive data more secure even in such a vulnerable situation, when attackers are already at home.

The security of companies is increasingly threatened by attacks in a wide variety of sectors, as cybercriminals are coming up with new and new ways to access their confidential data. A good example of this is the case of SolarWinds users. SolarWinds develops system management programs that are used by both government agencies and large corporations. In December, it was revealed that unknown cybercriminals had placed malicious code in an update to one of the company’s programs. Where this update was installed, it practically opened a loophole for criminals to the systems and the data stored in them. According to the latest information, the incident affected a total of 18,000 systems, and organizations such as Microsoft or the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear laboratories were also victims. To avoid similar situations, Micro Focus experts recommend using various encryption and data protection methods to strengthen resilience so that attackers cannot access valuable data even after they have entered the enterprise infrastructure.

Moving target moving protection

Advanced solutions for encrypting data already exist, such as Voltage SmartCipher, which also attaches a policy to the file. It moves with the document when it is moved, so it will be valid everywhere. The policy controls what actions can be performed on the file and makes it clear to the appropriate professionals what actions have been performed on the document. With this method, the data is permanently encrypted, making it worthless to attackers, even if it may be accessed.

Everyone retain its format and identity!

Most companies provide extra protection for their data stored in databases in a structured manner, as these typically include sensitive information such as personal information about customers and partners. In many places, encryption is performed on the entire disk or on the entire database. However, Micro Focus experts say this is not the right privacy strategy because, in the end, all it does is deny access to the full set of information that no one but a select few can access. Format-preserving encryption offers a more efficient approach as it provides access to non-confidential information necessary for day-to-day work.

Technology ensures that general users only see properly protected information and that encryption is only decipher if absolutely necessary. This activity is also logged by the system, so it can be detected in real time if data is misused. This allows users to do their job smoothly even when working with confidential data while it is secure. This can be useful, among other things, for compiling statistics. For example, if a web store needs an analysis of which regions sell the most goods, it is possible to display only the zip code in the unencrypted format of the customer data together with the orders.

The encryption components mentioned above can collaborate with Micro Focus identity and access management solutions. This allows you to manage policies and events assigned to identities. Thus, if a cybercriminant misuses the online identity of a corporate user, it can be detected and monitored immediately.

Don’t forget about unstructured data

For organizations often it is also a problem that they do not know exactly what data they need to protect and where it is located in the infrastructure. The clean line is that customer and partner data is stored in the database. But if, for example, they have been contracted and mailed to them, this information can also appear in other files, texts, spreadsheets and scanned material, in an unstructured form.

In this case, a tool such as ControlPoint, which can scan all unstructured data across the entire infrastructure. You can search all types of files, including images, videos, and audio recordings. and recognizes and filters out sensitive data that needs more protection. If necessary, the solution also strengthens protection by, for example, moving or encrypting documents containing sensitive information to a more secure location based on pre-defined policies, depending on the level of security required by the data.

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