Client story Nonprofit Research Institute Solves Cloud Security Gaps
By Insight Editor / 6 Apr 2020 / Topics: Cloud
Facts at a glance
Client industry:
Research services
Size of company:
Nonprofit institute operating in 75+ countries
Challenge:
The client needed to maintain industry compliance standards after its cloud migration by minimizing security gaps and improving data management and security policies.
Solution:
- Analysis of hybrid cloud environment, policies and processes
- Microsoft® Azure® deployment, evaluation and education
- Roadmap that aligns to NIST framework
Results:
- Fixed 80+ cloud configuration issues
- Secured 10+ high risk servers
- Developed security strategy with five goals
- Created NIST 800:53 compliance-ready environment
Solution area:
Insight’s Cloud + Data Center Transformation solutions help clients improve data center availability, performance and efficiency.
A successful cloud adoption involves many critical steps before and after migrating from on-premises servers. Since the cloud presents new ways to access and share information, re-examining legacy data management practices around security and compliance is a must to avoid breaches and audit issues.
After its cloud migration, a nonprofit research institute continued to use legacy data management policies. Since these policies weren’t optimized for the cloud, the organization exposed its infrastructure to unnecessary risk. The nonprofit leverages large datasets to provide private and public institutions recommendations and insights across 75+ countries.
Security is paramount to this core function. The nonprofit needed to examine its practices to align with the cybersecurity frameworks and regulations it voluntarily follows, including:
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
Ensuring cloud data protection and compliance
Resolving the nonprofit’s challenges would involve implementing new security and monitoring solutions while upgrading its Azure capabilities. The nonprofit also wanted its risk mitigation strategy to follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 800:53 framework.
The group needed help executing this plan and turned to Insight’s Cloud + Data Center Transformation team for guidance and training that would support its cloud-based objectives.
Our experts started by assessing existing processes, network architecture and organizational goals.
The review uncovered shelf-ware, shadow IT instances and potential cloud infrastructure security compromises that their systems hadn’t detected.
We also examined the client’s organizational risk posture, providing critical support, education and awareness to internal teams.
By helping the client adopt Azure Security Center and Microsoft Compliance Manager, we helped ensure the client could consistently scale its data while maintaining HIPAA and GDPR compliance.
We also recommended an Azure Security Center license upgrade, so the nonprofit could access advanced threat protection and detection services across its multi-cloud solution.
Last, we developed security specifications for Azure containers that would act as predefined controls to support security during cloud-based application development.
Insight has a deep relationship with Microsoft that includes more than 20 gold and silver solution competencies and dedicated resources. Our team coordinated with Microsoft during the entire engagement to ensure validation and safe implementation of the recommended solutions.
Enhanced resources and security
Guided by our experienced engineers, the nonprofit identified and fixed 80+ cloud configuration issues and secured 10+ high-risk servers.
The organization is now equipped to build a modern security program aligned with the NIST 800:53 framework, while meeting the highest requirements for federal informational systems, organizations and documents.
The client is now free to focus on serving valuable insights and recommendations to its members instead of grappling with data security and protection challenges.
