Unlocking the power of data - Intel

Is your business unlocking the true power of data? Find out how Fortanix is helping the finance sector take control of data security

Intel-powered cloud security and privacy is helping financial organisations to get more from their data

Our focus is on helping organisations unlock the power of their most valuable data

By Libby Plummer, Technology Writer

In order to succeed in the uber-competitive business landscape of 2020, companies across all sectors and of all sizes simply have to unlock the true power of data. If they don’t, they will be left behind. Fundamental to achieving this objective is keeping their data secure.

But with an ever-increasing avalanche of data, this represents a significant challenge for businesses operating in the Financial Services Industry (FSI). Businesses in this sector deal with enormous amounts of sensitive data and are subject to regulations that can vary drastically between different markets. And as more businesses begin to take advantage of the cloud, keeping data secure becomes even more of a challenge.

"Most of the tools and systems that have been put in place to secure our data, simply are not designed to be as flexible and dynamic and as location independent as cloud applications demand right now," said David Greene, Chief Revenue Officer at Fortanix*.

Silicon Valley start-up Fortanix, an Intel partner, is a software and hardware security specialist that works with enterprises across various sectors. However, the majority of its clients are large multinational FSI businesses, including Paypal*.

"Our focus is on helping organisations unlock the power of their most valuable data," said Greene. "And we believe that in order to do that, you first have to make the data secure, regardless of where it may be and of how and when it's going to be used. The need to protect large volumes of data, from a regulatory standpoint, combined with changing infrastructure means that there's strong demand for new strategies and technologies for keeping data secure."

In response to this need, Fortanix developed the SDKMS* (Self-Defending Key Manage Service*), a secure key management platform, combining hardware and software. SDKMS aims to provide businesses with a single point of management for data security across the enterprise. The platform is underpinned by Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX), which provides a secure hardware foundation. Intel SGX boosts the security of application code and data so that businesses can run sensitive applications securely in the cloud. A high level of security is guaranteed whether the data is stored in public, private, on-premise, or multi-cloud environments, across both new and old applications.

Taking a consistent approach to data security across the entire company is a key concern for FSI businesses right now. The SDKMS platform acts as a 'single pane of glass', enabling businesses to manage their data security from one central place. This includes the integration of legacy environments and infrastructure.

The platform is especially useful for organisations moving into the public cloud and those that currently have a fragmented data security programme that's in need of consolidation across private clouds. And as DevOps teams increasingly need to be able to use an API-driven approach when designing applications, security that works in a cloud-centric infrastructure is essential.

As more organisations have their data secured, the next step is working out how to get the best value from it. For FSI businesses, this involves working with other organisations to combine datasets and run advanced analytics, producing more detailed and useful business insights. Indeed, Intel recently joined the industry consortium to accelerate confidential computing and has contributed Intel SGX SDK to help simplify secure enclave development and deployment.

In the digital era, it's essential for financial organisations to take control of their data while taking advantage of dynamic cloud infrastructure. Only with a secure data security management system in place can they unlock the full power of their most valuable data. "It's something you can actually make progress on today, and our Intel-powered platform can help you do that," said Greene.

Mike Blalock, General Manager, Intel Financial Services Industry, added: “As a trusted leader in performance technology we want to help our customers unleash the power of data in order to accelerate their success. In this ecosystem of innovation it’s all about helping customers move, store and process data. Clearly, data security is fundamental to this goal and partners such as Fortanix are making a huge difference to how financial sector businesses are tackling this challenge.”