Data governance tools are essential to business at every level, with more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day, and a full 70% of companies that utilize cloud storage reporting falling victim to a data breach threatening that information. This blog post explores many of the most popular cloud-based solutions and associated data governance tools for CISOs looking to minimize their time investment.
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What is Data Governance?
Hybrid Cloud Security Platforms
Google Cloud
BeyondCorp
Amazon/AWS
BigD
Collibra
Azure
Azure Purview
Pure Play IAM Platforms
Symmetry Systems’ DataGuard
Duo Security
Okta
Auth0
CloudGuard
How Can We Help?
Learn more about how to keep you and your business’ information secure with the Symmetry Systems’ guide, What Is Data Governance?
What is Data Governance?
The Data Governance Institute (DGI) defines data governance as “a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods.”
Cloud vendors need to be in compliance with regulations and standards, such as GDPR, COPPA, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, CCPA, and many others, and offer tools to assist security professionals. There are many tools that accomplish that, but hybrid cloud security platforms and pure play IAM platforms are two of the primary drivers.
Hybrid Cloud Security Platforms
“Hybrid” cloud solutions offer a mix of on-premises and multi-cloud technology. This type of platform allows organizations to diversify their data asset storage while still maintaining high levels of security.
Given the popularity of hybrid cloud configurations, we’ll first look at offerings from Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft with a particular focus on data governance tools. For a broader examination of cloud data security and some of the best practices CISOs should know, please check out our blog post on that topic.
Google Cloud
Google offers a number of tools to enable data governance in the organization with robust IAM features. It offers a strong security and compliance foundation with Cloud DLP and Cloud IAM integrations. For enterprises with complex organizational structures, hundreds of workgroups, and many projects, IAM provides a unified view of security policy across the entire organization, with built-in auditing to ease compliance processes. Of note, IAM is offered at no additional charge for Google Cloud customers.
BeyondCorp
BeyondCorp is Google’s implementation of the Zero Trust model. BeyondCorp began as an internal Google initiative to enable every employee to work from untrusted networks without the use of a VPN, but can now be used by virtually any organization. BeyondCorp allows for single sign-on, access control policies, access proxy, and user- and device-based authentication and authorization.
Amazon/AWS
Amazon bills Amazon Web Services (AWS) as “the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully-featured services from data centers globally.”
To help customers move to Zero Trust, a number of AWS identity and networking services provide core Zero Trust building blocks as standard features. The most prominent example of Zero Trust in AWS is how millions of customers typically interact with AWS every day using the AWS Management Console or securely calling AWS APIs over a diverse set of public and private networks. Whether called via the console, the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI), or software written to the AWS APIs
AWS offers five distinct partners in the AWS Marketplace that are “purpose-built to help organizations break down data silos and implement policies to ensure the proper use of data.” They include:
BigD
BigD uses advanced machine learning and identity intelligence to help enterprises better protect their customer and employee data at petabyte scale. Using BigID, enterprises can better safeguard and assure the privacy of their most sensitive data, reducing breach risk and enabling compliance with data protection regulations like the EU General Data Protection Regulation and California Consumer Privacy Act.
Collibra
Collibra helps enterprises use their data to achieve meaningful business outcomes. The platform is open and extensible, with an enterprise security and stability approach that meets customer standards for reliability, privacy, and compliance. Collibra Data Intelligence Cloud products include data governance, which helps enterprises understand and find meaning in their data.
Other highlighted AWS partners include PKWare, Reltio, and Zaloni.
Azure
Azure is a cloud platform from Microsoft Cloud Services. Like Google and AWS, it boasts a broad offering of services, billions of dollars invested in the platform each year, and a large swath of Fortune 500 companies on the platform. And like Google and Amazon, Microsoft offers a robust data governance toolbox within Azure.
Azure Purview
Azure Purview is a unified data governance solution that helps you manage and govern on-premises, multi cloud, and SaaS data. You can easily create a holistic, up-to-date map of your data landscape with automated data discovery, sensitive data classification, and end-to-end data lineage.
Microsoft has adopted a Zero Trust strategy to secure corporate and customer data. Microsoft has helped thousands of organizations evolve their Zero Trust deployments to respond to transitions to remote and now hybrid work in parallel with a growing intensity and sophistication of cyberattacks. This white paper has more on Microsoft’s approach and insights gathered from helping customers deploy Zero Trust implementations.
Pure Play IAM Platforms
In addition to data governance offerings bundled with cloud solutions, there are a number of pure play providers to consider.
Symmetry Systems’ DataGuard
DataGuard is a hybrid-cloud data security platform that offers an easy solution to maintaining tight identity access and management policies by supplying exhaustive risk maps, customizable data firewall alerts, and granular data activity monitoring. DataGuard provides visibility of data objects, identities, and behaviors via its graph analytics engine. It generates automated responses at scale for DevOps and provides IAM policy recommendations. Using DataGuard, cloud-security teams tighten IAM policies around data, incident response teams know precisely what data objects are involved in a breach, and governance teams audit every access across every data store. With comprehensive data governance features, DataGuard provides object-level access records as a service to prepare for SOC2, ISO, HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA audits. Schedule a demo here.
Duo Security
Duo is considered a world-class access solution and provides multiple levels of security. It monitors the health of both managed and unmanaged devices, as well as offering adaptive security policies and easy user confirmation. If you need a cloud-based Trusted Access platform that keeps your organization’s data, devices, and applications safe at an enterprise scale, consider Duo.
Okta
Okta is a leading IAM solution for cloud or hybrid cloud environments. It offers a Zero Trust solution with standard features like MFA and intelligent security that leverages data from across the network to identify threats. In 2021, Okta announced Okta Identity Governance, a new offering featuring a cloud-first approach to identity governance and administration (IGA). Okta is specifically leveraging its ability to securely enable remote work.
Auth0
Auth0 was purchased by Okta in 2021, however, the two companies are currently operating as separate businesses. Auth0 is a leading identity management platform designed by application builders for application builders and teams. Auth0 can be considered a sophisticated login box that offers users a secure entrance to both applications and devices.
CloudGuard
CloudGuard from CheckPoint Software provides organizations with threat protection as well as automated cloud network security and unified security management across multi-cloud and on-premises environments. The security management controls via one console command center and is a highly respected tool in the industry.
How Can We Help?
The preponderance of multi-cloud and hybrid security solutions can be daunting to security professionals looking to secure their networks in a future-proof and compliant manner. At Symmetry Systems, we pride ourselves on a consultative and partner relationship with our clients. To learn more about Symmetry Systems DataGuard and how we might be able to help your team meet your cloud security goals, please contact us today.
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