Securing data and maintaining compliance in ServiceNow

2019 was one of the worst and shocking years in cyber security. Worst because of the scale of data exposure – 5183 breaches, exposing 7.9 billion records in just the first nine months of 2019 [1]. Shocking because of the post-mortem reports – most of the breaches were the result of security oversight and loose controls, something which could have been easily avoided by following basic security practices. For example, you might have invested heavily in securing your assets in the cloud, but how do you prevent human error, which according to Gartner may become the cause for 99% of cloud security failures by 2025 [2]?

Take the example of ServiceNow – the leading IT Service Management (ITSM) application. To help organizations manage their IT workflows and streamline service delivery, ServiceNow hosts a large amount of enterprise data in the cloud and takes great measures to protect the data within the service. But how do you prevent insider threats and bad actors from accessing and misusing the data in ServiceNow? How do you protect the data once it leaves ServiceNow environment and gets shared offline? Are you aware of who is accessing which data in your ServiceNow cloud at any point in time?

Sensitive data in ServiceNow cloud

In the world of data breaches, ITSM data may rank among one of the most frequently targeted. Most of the cybersecurity failures happen in the world’s top tech companies. Yahoo, Uber, Ebay, Twitter – every fort has been breached. When sensitive data leaves a business and enters the cloud, the risk for mistakes and breaches amplifies. Companies today must adopt advanced next-generation cloud security solutions to prevent and mitigate security threats in their IT environment, protect the privacy of their data and comply with a growing number of global regulations.

Following are some of the security mandates your organization should employ to protect the sensitive data in ServiceNow or any other ITSM focused SaaS cloud:

• Enable complete visibility and control over the sensitive information users are uploading, downloading and sharing, especially with personal devices and risky locations.
• Use powerful Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools to detect and classify sensitive data at rest or in motion, and apply protection rules to prevent data loss or leakage.
• Perform continuous assessment of user activity while in session for real-time detection and mitigation of user risks.

CipherCloud CASB+ for ServiceNow helps you to protect your data in ServiceNow and expand its use for business processes that handle private, sensitive or regulated data. The CipherCloud CASB+ platform provides deep visibility, end-to-end data protection, advanced threat protection, and comprehensive compliance capabilities to support ServiceNow cloud users, ensuring confidential and sensitive data is protected across all locations – in the cloud and on users’ devices.

How CipherCloud enables total protection for ServiceNow cloud:

• Deep visibility into existing data in ServiceNow through historical scanning – Cloud Data Discovery. This allows organizations to identify confidential and sensitive information related to PII, PHI, PCI, HIPAA and many more, and enforce remediations to preserve data integrity and compliance.
• Real-time content identification through advanced Data Loss Prevention policies. During policy violations, CipherCloud DLP will enforce actions to include alerts, restricted sharing, or automatic encryption of sensitive files.
• Secure offline data sharing and access through native digital rights management. During violations, administrators have the ability to retract access to the data, even if it was downloaded and copied to another device.
• Automatic detection of anomalous user behavior through machine-learning powered User & Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), and stepping up the user authentication through Adaptive Access Controls. CipherCloud’s Adaptive Access Control also enables context-based data access, and can block access to ServiceNow cloud based upon platforms used, time of day, originating location, and more that might suggest the theft, compromise of authentication credentials, or a sophisticated cyberattack.
• Best-in-class data protection (Encryption and Tokenization) that enables conversion of sensitive data into unreadable text before it is delivered to ServiceNow cloud, so that in the event that the data is compromised, it is unusable and may not be considered a breach.

Join us on January, 23 for a live webinar discussion on how organizations can secure ServiceNow with a data-centric approach while preserving user features and automated processes.

References:

1. https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/91267-9-billion-records-exposed-so-far-in-2019
2. https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/is-the-cloud-secure/