Jill Cygnarowicz |
As organizations move more of their sensitive data to cloud platforms for the efficiency, flexibility and scalability that it promises, security and control continue to be a significant obstacle to this adoption. Although the 2019 Thales Data Threat Report-Global Edition tells us that 90% of organizations report using the cloud and 71% say they are using sensitive data in cloud environments, it also finds that, globally, 60% of organizations surveyed have been breached at some point in their history, with 30% experiencing a breach within the past year alone. In the U.S. the numbers are even higher, with 65% ever experiencing a breach, and 36% within the past year. So what does this tell us?
Collectively, this trumpets the need for rigorous data security in the cloud to protect enterprises from all the losses—from customers and share price to overall reputation—that major breaches (now more common place than ever before) can trigger. And with data protection mandates such as PCI, HIPAA, ISO, the GDPR in effect, enterprises must simultaneously demonstrate data control to their auditors when sensitive data leaves their data center. In the span of just a few years, the challenge of protecting data sufficiently has swiftly jettisoned from the IT department to the boardroom.
In response to this need, Thales has partnered with VMware, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, and offers our Vormetric Transparent Encryption with VMware Cloud on AWS. An integrated cloud offering that allows you to create vSphere data centers on Amazon Web Services, Thales’s Vormetric Transparent Encryption with VMware Cloud on AWS ensures our joint customers are able to implement data security and compliance best practices.
Essentially, here’s how VMware Cloud on AWS can leverage Thales’s Vormetric Transparent Encryption:
- Securely migrate data when extending on-premises VMware vSphere-based environments to the AWS Cloud;
- Achieve compliance with data security mandates for data-at-rest by securing files, volumes and linked cloud storage with encryption, access controls and data access audit logging wherever it resides (and this can be done across multiple clouds, on-premises and within systems, big data and container environments);
- Simplify data security administration with centralized key management, encryption and access policies that reach across cloud and data center environments;
- Quickly protect existing and new data sets against data breaches without impacting applications, users or operational workflows; and,
- Easily implement privileged user access controls that enable administrators to work as usual, but never be exposed to sensitive data.
To learn more, read “Securing data in the hybrid cloud” by my colleague Mark Royle, and "Leverage Your Cloud Investments with VMware Cloud Marketplace" by our partner at VMware, Hari Ramakrishnan.