Sensitive Information Management Suite
Glatfelter Insurance Group Invests in Cyber-Ark Inter-Business Vault® to Ensure the Secure and Governed Exchange of Highly Sensitive Data and Mitigate Business Risk
Glatfelter Insurance Group was established in 1951 on the principles of trust, service and value. Today, Glatfelter Insurance Group is one of the largest brokerages in the United States, with 500 associates and 4,500 independent brokers serving 25,000 clients. Through its various divisions, Glatfelter Insurance Group offers a wide array of commercial and personal insurance products and financial services, as well as specialty property, casualty, life, accident and health insurance programs.
THE CHALLENGE
Glatfelter, like many insurance companies, needed to eliminate manual, time-consuming processes, meet audit requirements, ensure higher productivity of its staff, and secure the exchange of its highly sensitive data between customers, employees and business partners. Specifically, Glatfelter needed to address how to securely exchange data including social security numbers with its benefits provider, as well as lockbox file transfers. Other examples of file transfer challenges faced by the insurance industry include data exchange with private investigators regarding insurance claims, and claims processing with external lawyers.
To handle transmission of valuable company data, typical methods that are considered secure include FTP technology, "secure email,'' regular email, courier services and postal service to handle data transmission. However, contrary to popular belief, most of these common methods used for file transfer are often not secure, lack manageability and governance. Consider FTP technology, for instance. A shortcoming with traditional FTP and even encrypted FTP sessions is that after the data is done moving (also referred to as "data at rest"), it sits on the FTP or SFTP server in plain text. If that FTP or SFTP server is directly connected to the internet -- as it most likely will be to allow business partners to connect to it -- the data is at risk of being accessed and shared. This is in violation of PCI and HIPAA standards. FTP technology can also slow down business processes, as an organization's IT team often needs to modify FTP scripts in order to support a new business initiative or bring on a new business partner that needs to exchange sensitive information with the system. Furthermore, having the ability to know if the files were transferred correctly and on time (i.e., monitoring) is very difficult to do with transfer methods such as FTP, email and couriers.
THE SOLUTION
To secure access to its critical business information, Glatfelter sought the assistance of Cyber-Ark Software, the leading global software provider for protecting critical applications, identities and information. Glatfelter implemented Cyber-Ark's Inter- Business Vault® which delivers the combined benefits of governed and managed file transfer capabilities in one centralized, highly secure platform. It allows organizations the flexibility to migrate from legacy technologies in order to support more efficient business processes without requiring changes to partners' existing practices or IT infrastructure.
Glatfelter uses the Inter-Business Vault solution to automate and centrally manage all data exchange and sharing processes. In this way, the company's information is not available unless an authorized user or application has permission to access that data. The Inter-Business Vault, which uses Cyber-Ark's patented Vaulting Technology®, provides data encryption at rest and in transit, transparent encryption keys management, segregation of duties and access control.
