SafeNet is looking towards Cloud security products to power its next phase of growth. By Mehak Chawla
If there is one vertical that is taking technology as well as security seriously, it is BFSI. A slew of new compliance regulations coupled with the advent of mobile and Internet banking have ensured that banks evaluate their security like never before. It is this security space that vendors like SafeNet are aiming to capitalise upon.
According to Rana Gupta, VP, Sales, APAC SRM business , SafeNet, the drive for ensuring greater levels of security has its roots in the macro financial inclusion projects of the government. “Strong banking infrastructure is the key to the success of many mission mode projects. All the channels in the ecosystem have realised that it is only information technology that can facilitate internet as well as mobile banking.”
SafeNet, which is already working closely with RBI, UIDAI, PCI etc is a firm believer in encryption being the foundation of the security industry, even while propagating a multi layered approach to security.
Cloud security
As Indian organisations are moving from physical infrastructure to dense virtualization, the threat scenario is also evolving at a rapid pace. That is why, according to Gupta, Organisations that are evaluating Cloud have to be aware of the security repercussions.
According to Sangeeta Anand, GM, Commercial Data Protection, SafeNet, there is an increasing realisation amongst banking in particular and corporate in general in India, that Cloud computing is here to stay. “The thinking on Cloud in India is certainly ahead of the curve and with government taking the initiative for inclusive growth, people are increasingly realising that Cloud technology is a long haul in India,” she opined.
Anand explained that Cloud comes with many security challenges, including concerns that emerge from any multi tenant environment. ” Public Cloud, which is a meta-trend across the globe, pushes data into all directions. Moreover, the data residing in the Cloud environment is easy to copy and move,she explained.
Adding to that is the fact that Cloud creates a new set of super-users who have easy access to the data. ?ontrolling and retaining information in the Cloud environment is a key thing for any enterprise and that is what we assist organisations to accomplish,said Anand.
With this Cloud focus in the background, SafeNet has been developing several offerings from a Cloud perspective. For instance, their VMWare SafeNet ProtectV which is a product providing a complete data encryption solution for virtualised and cloud environments.
Also a part of this stack is SafeNet Authentication Service, which is a Cloud based authentication solution.
According to Anand, the security of mission-critical application data in shared multi-tenant Clouds or virtual machines is a concern for companies that want to virtualize or move these production applications to the Cloud. SafeNet solves this problem with the introduction of ProtectV, a comprehensive virtual machine and Cloud data security solution. By using ProtectV with VMware vCenter (4.1x) and VMware vShield, customers can protect high-value data by combining access control and crypto?roduction at scale. This will also help our customers to move their mission-critical applications to private, public, or hybrid Clouds while retaining full ownership and control over their high-value data.”
SafeNet is also banking upon its Unified Identity Federation for Cloud Applications, which is basically a new Cloud functionality for its SafeWord 2008, a well established authentication management platform. SafeWord 2008 with its added Cloud based functionality includes identity federation and single sign-on (SSO) capabilities for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, including those on Salesforce.com and Google Apps.
As a result, SafeNet is giving their customers the leverage to seamlessly extend enterprise identities to SaaS-based applications. ?ur basic strategy is to deliver unified data control in a physical, virtual or a Cloud environment,remarked Anand.
India plans
According to Gupta, BFSI remains the strongest vertical for SafeNet in India, with the company already working with RBI, PCI, RTGS and doing a lot of work with organisations, especially in the wake of evolving compliance needs like the PCI-DSS. ” PCI-DSS is making banks to take a relook at their security infrastructure and we are doing a lot of work on that aspect,” he remarked.
He went on to add that with compliance becoming more inclusive and pervasive, many organisations, including the government ones are looking beyond perimeter based security to actual embedded security. Explained Anand, “Encrypting data and leaving the keys out in the system is like locking your front gate and leaving the keys on the doormat.” She added that encryption provides ample security only when its keys are nestled in a secure storage. ?nce you have your keys secure it does not matter where your data is- in physical, virtual or hybrid environment.”
On the vertical front, SafeNet is looking to tread beyond BFSI and tap into other compliance laden verticals like healthcare and pharma, IT/ITeS and manufacturing. “Wherever compliance mandates business action, SafeNet is looking at those verticals,” said Gupta.
Though Anand believed that the market size of security cannot be quantified in numbers, India has a huge potential for security players. We are certainly eyeing a double digit growth in India,she concluded.
