Protegrity Methodology

The Protegrity Methodology helps organizations implement a data security solution through a set of steps that start with data governance and ends at rolling out the implemented solution.

Data governance

Corporate Data Governance, often based on a board level directive, will specify the data that is sensitive to an organization. The source of these data elements may come from regulatory requirements or from internal corporate security goals that go beyond standard compliance. These are the data elements that will be the focus of designing and delivering a data security solution.

Discovery

During the Discovery step, Protegrity Solution Architects will collaborate with the customer corporate IT and Corporate Security stakeholders. They will identify the location and use of the sensitive data that has been identified by Data Governance.

A Discovery document is created that contains the data flows, technologies used (databases, applications, etc.), performance, SLA requirements, and who is authorized to view protected sensitive data in the clear.

Solution design

Based on the results of the Discovery Step, Solution Architects will work with the customer Architecture stakeholders to design and document a data security solution. This solution will meet the requirements of Data Governance.

This step involves methodically tracing through the Discover document, following the path of sensitive data as it flows through different technologies. The goal is to deliver end to end data security from the point of entry or creation through business processes, and ultimately until the data is archived or deleted.

At different points during this step, prototyping may be used to assess the impact of a solution over another. The data security solution is recorded in a Solution Design document.

Protegrity Data Security Solutions have the goal of delivering security to match the risk tolerance of the organization while recognizing the trade-off between security and usability.

Product installation

The Solution Design document will identify the list of Protegrity products that will be used to satisfy the customer data security requirements. These products need to be installed on the target environments.

Installation step also involves basic settings and verification of connectivity among the designed solution product components.

Solution configuration

The Protegrity platform has the flexibility to protect whatever data your organization deems sensitive and to use the most appropriate protection method. Configuring the solution means that data security policies will be created and deployed to the Protegrity protectors. The policies will identify the data that needs to be protected, how that data is to be protected and who should have access to that data. These policies are deployed to all Protegrity protection agent and will guide protectors on all data security operations.

In addition to the data security policy, the protectors are configured to bind the data protection operations to a target layer, system or environment. The Data Security Gateway (DSG) is integrated at the network level. Therefore, it is likely that the configuration step will also involve network firewall, load balancer, and IDP configuration or integration. Specific Gateway Rulesets for the designed solution will also be identified and set as part of this step.

Initial migration

With all data security solutions where sensitive data is being changed – protected, all existing data will need to be protect as well. This process is known as Initial Migration. Initial migration is applied to replace all the sensitive data that already exists in the system unprotected, with its protected. This step exists to avoid having unprotected and protected data mixed together.

Testing

Data Security Solution add security functions that will protect and unprotect sensitive data. These security operations may be constrained to certain individuals or processes. The step in the Protegrity Methodology will require the testing of the data security solution before rolling the solution out.

The methodology step ensures that the data is protected, when it should be protected or unprotected, and that business systems continue to function as usual. This is controlled by the data security policy.

Production rollout

The final step is to roll the solution out and make it available for users.