Data security

Trend 12. Securing data across the value chain, from origination to consumption

With enterprise boundaries fading, most of the enterprise data is either on public or private clouds. Further, with remote working, global teams, and increased cloud adoption, it is crucial to protect applications and data and the channels connecting to them. Digitization has also increased third-party and partner collaboration, leading to sharing of unstructured data. This further accentuates the need for more effective approaches for information rights management. AI and ML are becoming increasingly important to cater to the larger ecosystem and data logs. Hence, multiple security controls are integrated with AI/ML-based decision-making capabilities to establish solutions to protect data and applications.

A Swiss agricultural trading company initiated a cloud-first and modern workplace enterprise program for at-par security for on-premises, cloud, managed, and unmanaged devices. Infosys partnered with the company to provide an integrated data protection solution. This integrated solution included Azure Information Protection, Office365 Data Loss Prevention, MS Cloud Application Security, Intune Multifactor Authentication, Antivirus, and Endpoint Data and Response, with logs integrated into Azure Sentinel. Infosys established AI/ML-based rules, augmenting content-aware and context-based decision-making for the enterprise. We integrated a Microsoft-based solution with ServiceNow to automate ticketing and tracking.

Data security

Trend 13. Cloud access security brokers for enhanced data protection

Enterprises can now focus on core capabilities, with cloud adoption easing data storage concerns. Elevated concerns toward privacy and security breaches have increased the demand for cloud security solutions. That said, the prominence of cloud access security brokers (CASBs) is gaining traction. The global CASB market is estimated to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 18.2% during 2019-2025. The main reason is the widespread deployment by many small and medium businesses. Given the flexibility of CASB solutions, their adoption rate is similarly high for large enterprises.

A CASB helps shadow IT audits, scan and protect data on cloud storage, and prevent data leaks on software-as-a-service applications. It enables the evaluation of compliance and security requirements. A CASB encrypts and tokenizes data and stops the upload of sensitive materials. Users are granted different cloud service functionality and data access levels based on their locations, operating systems, and devices. The percentage of enterprises securing their cloud applications with a CASB will reach up to 60% by 2022, says Gartner.

Infosys uses a modern security stack (multifactor authentication, conditional access, virtual private network, terminal access, endpoint protection platform, endpoint detection and response, data leakage prevention, patching, hardened build, etc.) for endpoints. The stack provides unified control and visibility into our entire IT infrastructure, enabling efficient remote management of servers, networks, and endpoints.