Security Practitioners Should Work Towards Preserving Users’ Privacy As Much As Possible

Jonathan Fischbein, CISO, Check Point Software Technologies, speaks about how data security and compliance has changed over the past year

How has the need for data security and compliance changed over the past year?

Over the past year, the “new norm” workspace expanded the organization’s perimeter. Going forward into 2021, remote work and distributed workspaces are a new reality. The need for data security and compliance was predominant as organizations had to recalibrate their cybersecurity approach around securing their corporate networks and data centers, cloud environments, and employees wherever they are. With remote work as the new standard and organisations working on multi-cloud environments, we had to make sure that all the developers and teams accessing very confidential assets such as source codes for customer PII (Personally Identifiable Information), ERP systems or financial information, etc. did not go out of the organization.

Technologies such as VDI (virtual desktop Infrastructure) together with several other security solutions are adopted to make sure that the exchange of data and information from home is secured. The use of collaboration tools has also escalated rapidly. Organizations have switched to using collaboration tools such as Zoom, Teams, and Slack more than ever before. These collaboration platforms which are an extension of an organisation on-premise infrastructure, are completely in the public cloud.

What are the best practice standards and frameworks that can help companies achieve and maintain data security and compliance?

There are plenty of best practices, but the question is first of all how can we implement a best practice that is going to scale and be unified across the entire organization. It is not feasible to implement best practice standards and frameworks separately for each different sector within an organisation. It has to be simple. If a security policy or a solution framework is not easy to follow, it will become a major obstacle. Cyber attackers will find ways to elude and bypass it which is a very big problem.

Adopting the Data loss protection (DLP) best practice is extremely important in making sure that all information going out is filtered. Secondly, making sure that all files by default are encrypted in ways such that any member of the organization can access it, but if unwittingly that information is sent to an external 3rd party, they should not be able to access it. There are many different ways by which important data can fall into the wrong hands.

Are there any regional data compliance regulations and frameworks, which companies that handle large amounts of public data need to follow?

Every country has its own legislation and set of regulations which are dynamic and are reformed through continuous efforts to improve it. There are many data protection laws and legislations that are put in place to secure and safeguard the protection of data and privacy within the country. Besides the regional regulations and compliance, there are also several other well-known certifications and frameworks that cybersecurity vendors or organizations operating in the cloud or other security-specific areas have to comply with.

We need to have compliance checks on this process of digitalization and adoption of the cloud. As we move the information and important data into the public cloud, we need to also add to the security to ensure that this environment is secured. There is also a necessity to maintain compliance checks and monitor it on a regular basis. This is an important part of our daily operations at Check Point Software Technologies which requires us to focus on compliance checks on GRC and infosec best practices internally as well.

What according to you are the five tips that companies need to follow to comply with data security regulations.

First of all, I would say map the challenge right. If the mapping is done in the right way then you will know exactly what is where and will be able to tackle the problem. This is very significant on the public cloud when it is not sure how dynamic or extending it is, in that case, the battle will be lost before it even starts. The second one is to make sure to understand the security controls that are already in place. As cyber-attacks become increasingly evasive, more controls are added, making security more complicated and tedious.

The next important thing is to implement the security policies that are relevant and can be met. For example, it is not possible to implement security controls of military-grade to a regular organisation, it has to be relevant and there should be a balance. Other than this, there is also a need to make sure that the security policy does not become an obstacle and allows people to work successfully, knowing that security is present on the side but does not cause an obstruction.

And lastly, it is very important to make sure that all of the regulations such as SOC 2 and PCI, etc., and many other such certifications and regulations are updated. We know that in every country legislation and regulations are changing so it is necessary to make sure that the security teams are up to date with this.