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Applications - Information under threat
With the increased reliance on computer held information the need to ensure this information is secure when on tape has expanded into many differing areas. The application for both the Paranoia and SafeTape products is continuously increasing and includes
Secure Data Transit
Even the largest and most professional companies that offer to move your tapes from one site to another suggest that if the data is sensitive it should be encrypted. Many large data losses have occurred when tapes have been 'lost' in transit. If the data has been encrypted the data cannot be compromised.
Secure Data Vaulting
Once your tapes have been taken off-site, en route to the secure vaults the data is already at risk. Encrypting the data ensures the customer data remains secured whatever happens to the media.
Data Integrity
If your tape can be accessed then it can be changed without your knowledge and with no audit trail to track the changes. By encrypting the data you can be sure it cannot be changed.
Internal Privacy
If you need to share a large tape library there is always the concern that sensitive data from one system could be inadvertently read on another system. Utilising a Paranoia2 in-line from the system with secure data will ensure this cannot occur.
Medical Records
The requirement to ensure that patients medical records are kept confidential is understood all over the world. Many countries are aware of this and have introduced legislation to ensure that the records are kept confidential. Placing a Paranoia2 into the environment can ensure that the integrity of these records are not compromised.
Secure Data Transit
Information under threat!
When your tapes are in transit, however short the distance, they are potentially at great risk! When transferring the tapes to an offsite vault for "security" are the staff used for this lowly task vetted in the same way as other people who have access to the data are? What if the courier was involved in an accident? How secure would your data be then?
If you have to ship data a greater distance, such as across the Atlantic, would you be happy to ship this information by your standard courier?
By using a product from the Paranoia series all these actions can be done without risk. Should the tapes be lost at any point you can be reassured by the knowledge that the data is unreadable and thereby useless to others.
Ensure you can meet the needs of your audit and know that you are using "best practice" when moving this valuable asset. You would not send cash unsecured, so don't trust sending unsecured data either!
Secure Data Vaulting
Information under threat!
When a company designs a strategy for backup it usually is doing it for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery reasons. The main concern is to ensure all the company's information (often its most valuable single asset) is copied and taken to a safe place. In such cases a 'safe place' is seen as somewhere that will be unaffected by a disaster, such as flood, fire, aircraft crash, etc.
The data is often sent to a company who specialise in the secure storage of data. It is also possible that these same vaulting sites are a DR site so you can also recover and use the data on their site.
The problem faced by some companies is the issue of information security. If you send your tapes to another company can you be sure they will follow the same level of security as you will on your own site?
Using tape encryption means you can be sure there is no way anyone is copying, or seeing your data at the off site storage facility.
Data Integrity
Is your information correct!
Most companies have control over the data which they keep on their servers and networks. Access controls are normally well understood and usually people have access to information on a "need to know" basis. Audit control ensures that changes made to critical or sensitive data are tracked thus assuring the integrity of the data.
When data is saved to tape it is normally for one of two reasons, firstly as an archive or to be able to restore the data in the case of loss. Once on tape you no longer have control of that data! It is possible for a file to be edited on the tape without any audit, or change control being recorded. If that data is then restored or brought back from archive it has changed without any means of flagging these changes. By encrypting data whilst being written to tape, the integrity of the data is assured! If your need is that of full integrity, tape encryption is essential to certify you are complying in all areas. An unhappy employee could change data on an unencrypted tape and then create a situation where a restore was needed. You have no means of knowing that the live data you are now using has been changed!
For law enforcement requirements, where evidence must been proven to be unchanged from the original, Paranoia allows data to be archived until it is needed in court, so the integrity of the data cannot be challenged.
Internal Privacy
With the increasing use of large shared tape libraries and silos within a company there is a chance this can impact on internal security. If either by mistake or intentionally a tape 'belonging' to another part of the company is loaded in the wrong drive, there is the chance it could read by the wrong person and used incorrectly.
Human Resources information released in this way could lead to insecurity in the work force. It may be that it simply makes some workers feel they are being undervalued in respect to the salaries they can now see the management are receiving, or that their personal information is freely available.
By allowing personal data to be read by unauthorised staff you may also be breaking statutory regulations such as the Data Protection Act. The possibilities of this problem could be far reaching and impact on the company’s value. Information being released into the public domain before the company planned, and not in a structured way, has already been seen to have a dramatic impact on the stock value of several companies.
Whatever the reason to ensure internal privacy of data recorded onto tape there is a Paranoia solution to meet the need, and all without any extra system overhead, or slowing of data backup or restore.
Medical Records
The requirement to keep medical records confidential is understood around the world. Many countries have either introduced legislation to ensure this or are working on it. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the USA has pointed the way forward and other countries have brought in similar compliance requirements. HIPAA regulations require health care organizations to formalise a plan that complies with audit, security, privacy and transaction exchange standards.
Products from the Paranoia family are already in use around the world to ensure compliance with regulations. Even before the regulations were formalised some companies and government departments in the health sector had already seen this need and implemented Paranoia units as part of their system to ensure patient confidentiality. First sales in this area were made back in 1997.
Paranoia units do not need to recognise the data, they simply encrypt information, be it doctors notes, database information, digital scans or pathology lab results. All data is written to tape in a secure way, so ensuring any media removed from a hospital or surgery cannot be read by unauthorised personnel.
Whatever system you have, when you are writing data to a tape drive there is a Paranoia unit to meet your needs. Don't wait for the problem to occur, start implementing the solution before you have a problem! When you consider the damage of a legal challenge to a doctor over a reported mistake then you want to be sure the correct data is to hand and you have control of the release of that information to the media. Don't allow a 'well wishing' member of staff to send the raw data to the press for them to interpret.
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