Safeguarding Sensitive Data in the Cloud: What Finance Professionals Need to Know

The finance sector is on heightened alert after a spate of high-profile hacking incidents that battered the reputations of well-known industry brands. TheEquifax data breach compromised the sensitive personal information of nearly half of all Americans, exposingEquifax to significant risk and rocking consumer trust.Wells Fargoaccidentally released details like Social Security numbers, bank account sizes, and financial services fee information for tens of thousands of its wealthiest customers.

In a data-driven economy, information is one of the most valuable assets an organization owns. That value is amplified in the financial sector, which routinely deals with highly sensitive, confidential, and proprietary data. In an increasingly interconnected environment, all enterprises must take precautions to protect data from unauthorized access, malicious cyber-attacks, and physical intrusion. But the level of security must be balanced with the requirement to generate value from data.

An emerging security innovationin the cloud, Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), can help organizations with elevated security needs achieve that balance. With BYOK, organizations can self-manage encryption keys to protect their most sensitive data in the cloud. Organizations that use BYOK to encrypt and decryptdatain the cloud maintain sole access to their data and can support IT security objectives across multiple fronts, including data governance programs, disaster recovery plans, and regulatory compliance.

In addition to considering an extra layer ofsecurity control like the BYOK solution, financial professionals have an obligation to ensure that the cloud-based solutions they use provide the security support they need to keep customer data and proprietary information safe. When evaluating cloud service providers, here are some questions to ask:

• How robust is the security technology?It’s essential to make sure the cloud solution incorporates technology that can safeguard keys from unauthorized access, cyber-attacks, and physical intrusions.
• Who owns the data?Financial firms should own their data, and they should seek a commitment from the cloud service provider to not access it without explicit permission. 
• Is data collection and storage secure?It’s important to know that safeguards are in place to safely collect and store data — and whether the solution interfaces with external systems.
• Are compliance rules built into the solution natively?Compliance management should be an integrated process that includes access control, hash algorithms, and secure storage. But it’s also important to make sure users can work in an environment that enforces compliance without obstructing the workflow unnecessarily.
• Does the solution integrate security and audit tracking capabilities?Administrators need to know who has viewed and edited material at a detailed level, so it’s critical to find a solution that provides granular details and enables transparency into how data is accessed and manipulated.

As headlines reveal all too frequently, financial institutions of every size are at risk of a devastating data breach. Financial professionals have a responsibility to ensure the safety of the data that their clients entrust to them, and part of that obligation is to assess the protection offered by cloud service providers and make sure it is adequate to meet the financial industry’s unique security requirements.

Hackers work around the clock to come up with ingenious ways to steal data, but fortunately, cloud service providers that work with the financial industry are also stepping up with new solutions like BYOK. By keeping up with the latest trends in security and evaluating cloud solutions to ensure they provide rigorous protection, financial professionals can safeguard sensitive data.

Tony Levy is the Head of Finance Solutions at Anaplan.