PKWARE - Best International Data Protection Solution

Company: PKWARE, Milwaukee, WI
Company Division/Group:PKWARE
Company Description: PKWARE helps organizations eliminate security gaps, manage sensitive data, and meet their data compliance goals. With more than 30 years in data security, our innovative technology and unmatched capabilities allow customers to enforce their data security policies while avoiding user disruption and broken workflows. We also invented the ZIP file, the world’s most widely-used archive format.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Categories - Business Technology
Nomination Sub Category: International Data Protection Solution

Nomination Title: PKWARE’s Data Security Platform

Update was released on December 29, 2020.

When it comes to protecting sensitive data, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Some types of data need to be encrypted while some need to be deleted altogether. PKWARE’s Data Security Platform provides a range of solutions and automated data protection options to satisfy all of its global enterprise customers. Using this technology, protection is automatically applied as soon as files are created or modified, with no action needed by the end user.

When PKWARE’s platform technology detects sensitive data, it immediately applies the correct form of remediation, including encryption, masking, quarantine, deletion, classification, masking and tokenization. More details on these features are as follows:

Persistent encryption:applypersistent strong encryptionthat remains with data even when it is shared or copied outside an organization’s network

Transparent encryption:applytransparent data encryptionto protect data at rest, with robust user-based access controls

Quarantine:move sensitive files to a specified location

Redaction:replace sensitive text with unreadable characters

Deletion:permanently delete files containing sensitive data

Classification:add visual and metadataclassificationtags to increase user awareness and facilitate action by other security technology

Tokenization: a reversible process that replaces sensitive data with data that can’t be used by unauthorized parties

Masking: permanent tokenization that replaces sensitive information with random characters; typically used in test environments

In addition, the platform can lock and encrypt field-level information across multiple types of databases. For static data masking needs, the platform can irreversibly mask data completely or partially in more than 40 different ways where either realistic or unrealistic looking data are needed. For data in motion, PKWARE offers dynamic data encryption and masking capabilities. Files that are exported from databases can have element level redaction applied to protect specific data.

Overall, PKWARE’s Data Security Platform monitors and protects sensitive information across the enterprise. Driven by powerful automation capabilities, IT personnel and executives can focus more on their business needs and strategy and less on monitoring the security of their technology, and employees can work without disruption or putting company data at risk, since PKWARE automatically handles their security needs and requirements.

With more than 1,200 security platform customers worldwide and more than 30 years in enterprise data protection, PKWARE’s experience and technology capabilities are unmatched. PKWARE’s Data Security Platform has been deployed as the enterprise-wide data governance program for Fortune 100 companies and remains in place today, showcasing its effectiveness and scalability. More than 100,000 users worldwide are currently working with PKWARE to deploy its data security solutions, including seven of the10 largest financial services companies in the world. PKWARE more than doubled its subscription revenue in 2020 over the previous year. And as part of the platform, Smartcrypt (to be PK Protect on 3/22), sales grew significantly in 2020, underscoring the continued demand for automated data protection, encryption and compliance for enterprises worldwide.

An example of PKWARE’s data protection solution in action is when it partnered with a healthcare software provider to quickly build strong encryption into its electronic health records (EHR) software – because their next EHR release was scheduled in just a few months. They used PKWARE’s Smartcrypt Development Kit, which allowed the company’s developers to include persistent data-level protection in their existing application with only a few lines of code, which took just days rather than months, allowing the EHR release proceeded as planned.

Because of the nature of the security business, customer names cannot be revealed, but included below are some testimonials showcasing PKWARE’s Data Security Platform’s ability to successfully protect enterprise data:

“PKWARE is a great product. Enough said.” – Financial Analyst, Global 500 Financial Services Company

“PKWARE’s solution enabled cloud usage and is therefore key for our IT transformation.” – IT Director, Large Enterprise financial Services Company

“PKWARE’s transparent data encryption allows us to operate an IaaS CSP independent encryption solution. This makes the use of cloud even more trustworthy.” – Security Officer, Large Enterprise Financial Services Company

Additionally, according to a recent global customer survey, 67% of customers indicated that they increased their data security by up to 50% since implementing PKWARE’s Data Security Platform, and a quarter ofrespondents increased security as much as 90%.