About The Customer
A top 20 global financial institution that provides banking, investments, life insurance services and retirement services to consumers. The institution’s wholesale banking division provides international banking with local presence in more than 15 countries. Their global franchises serve a wide range of organizations, including corporates, multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments.
All of this means a collection of sensitive, corporate and personal financial information their customers expect will be properly protected.
The Business Challenge
Given the global nature of its operation, the wholesale banking division lacked visibility and control of data that was being exchanged and shared across its offices. Regulatory compliance and internal governance was difficult to achieve given the limited knowledge of where and how sensitive data moved. However, they did have extensive data classification system in place and had deep knowledge of what data to protect. This knowledge gave them a foundation upon which to build a data protection program.
Their next logical step was to discover where the data was being stored (desktops/servers), how the data was being used, and how the data flows that could put the company at risk for a security breach. Once they were armed with the details around the actual data flows, they could compare these with what the expectations were and what regulations mandated.
Critical Success Factors
- Comprehensive visibility into global data flows
- Support regulatory compliance efforts
- Ensure protection of senstive financial data
- Leverage existing data classification to prioritize security resources
The Solution
The financial institution deployed Fortra™’s Digital Guardian® ’s appliance based Network DLP. The appliances were optimized to find, identify, and protect the regulated data typical to financial institutions and are built for rapid deployment and low overhead. The customer was able to get the appliances installed, configured, and protecting data within only a few days. Immediately upon installing the appliances, the customer saw where sensitive data was flowing throughout that entire organization, and when it was leaving their control and potentially at risk for external exposure. They could adjust data security policies based on the newfound visibility. The existing data classification system allowed the Digital Guardian DLP to make more accurate decisions around polices, reducing time wasted on false positives and false negatives.
The organization had a lean IT organization, and due to security staffing challenges, needed a solution that would not require additional staff, or a labor-intensive solution. The Digital Guardian Network DLP appliance requires minimal effort once installed, meaning the customer would not need to incur the cost of new InfoSec employees.
The Results
The customer was able to secure communications with business partners, agents, and brokers, and document the steps taken to protect the sensitive data to each of these parties for regulatory compliance and internal governance. The new visibility into all data flows allowed them to validate and refine controls on sensitive, financial data. They were better able to protect customer account information from being exposed on web sites, or sent via unsecured channels.
Data Types We Protect
