Government

In spite of a host of security mandates being enforced within government agencies, harmful breaches continue to occur—prompting an increasing public outcry, and the prospect of further oversight of an agency’s information security practices.  As they seek to combat these thefts and improve information security, government agencies are looking to broaden their use of encryption. Ingrian can help government agencies implement encryption with unprecedented security, efficiency, and performance—ultimately ensuring critical information is secured with minimal expense.

The Challenge

For years, government agencies have been responsible for adhering to a range of security mandates: The Department of Defense’s Directive 8500.1, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002, numerous National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) policies, and The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to name just a few.

Yet in spite of the many regulations and security measures in place, devastating, large-scale security breaches continue to occur. In the wake of these breaches, the executive branch has placed increased urgency on adhering to these guidelines—culminating in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) August 2006 deadline for implementing NIST encryption requirements. 

While encrypting sensitive data at rest is one of the keys to achieving compliance with OMB mandates and many of the directives already in place, very often the use of encryption is not widespread within government agencies. Why? Historically, encryption presented an array of technological and organizational hurdles, including performance degradation, difficult application integration issues, and highly complex administration.

Stopping the breaches that have been plaguing the public sector will require more than any single technology or policy, but as the OMB’s actions make clear, encryption of sensitive personal data will need to be more broadly adopted if federal agencies are truly to become better stewards of sensitive personal information.

The Solution

Ingrian Networks® offers government agencies an effective way to encrypt data at rest, while avoiding the challenges encryption has traditionally posed.  With Ingrian, government agencies can secure sensitive data from internal and external threats and cost-effectively comply with the OMB’s directive and a range of security mandates. Featuring a dedicated security appliance and specialized software, Ingrian DataSecure® Platforms enable organizations to encrypt data in applications and databases. As a result, organizations can ensure that critical data—such as social security numbers, patient records, and other personally identifiable information—is always secured.

DataSecure® platforms are the only appliance-based encryption solutions available today that feature granular, field-level encryption capabilities and that can be integrated at the Web server, application server, or database layer. In addition, DataSecure® platforms centralize cryptographic processing, key and policy management, and security administration, which yields tremendous advantages in terms of security, scalability, and manageability.