Why You Need a Multi-Layered Security & Compliance Strategy

Security and compliance have always been high priorities for The Macaluso Group, a technology-driven healthcare company focused on patient access programs.

Its proprietary cloud-based financial payment solutions made it an industry leader, but as TMG continued to add more products, company leaders found its traditional data center couldn’t provide enough flexibility, scalability or security to support its growth.

In developing its strategy to move to the AWS cloud, TMG selected Rackspace as its managed public cloud service provider of choice. Because the company manages credit card data, TMG must comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards Level 1 (PCI DSS Level 1), in addition to maintaining HIPAA compliance.

Creating a multi-layered security strategy

TMG’s commitment to compliance and security is key to dealing with today’s rapidly innovating threat and complex regulatory environments.

Security remains the top concern for companies moving to the cloud, and it’s no wonder. A single breach can cost millions, permanently scare away customers and even take down the entire organization. For healthcare companies like TMG, ransomeware attacks are now the number one threat. All types of attacks are becoming more sophisticated, and dwell time remains high, at 78 days. It is common for organizations to go months before they realize they’ve been hacked, while most attacks succeed and begin exfiltrating data in minutes.

So how can organizations reduce the risk of a cybersecurity attack and business-impacting downtime? Secure everything and maintain compliance. That means being prepared to address human error, vulnerabilities and cyberattacks, while complying with and maintaining data security and other industry compliance standards.

The key is to create a robust, multi-layered security strategy laser focused on the IT environment, which can provide detection, response and remediation when that environment is in jeopardy. Building in security from the ground up also helps accelerate application development.

A multi-layered security strategy must be able to:

• deal with a threat landscape that not only responds to but anticipates new threats.
• adapt to increasingly complex regulations with an agile infrastructure that can swiftly address new requirements.
• deliver secure IT that complies with regulations, maintains privacy and can respond to change while reducing costs.

By securing everything and maintaining compliance, it becomes possible to:

• Meet the demands of increasing regulatory, security and privacy requirements. A simpler IT environment, managed by experts, makes it easier to meet a rising regulatory bar and increasingly innovative security threats.
• Accelerate delivery of new products and services. This is a must for businesses seeking to remain competitive and to delight customers. An agile, multi-layered security regime will enable security to be built in and around new applications.
• Increase business agility. Agility is the ability to adjust rapidly changing business circumstances. Dealing with security impacts, compliance demands and privacy with the right security strategy in place helps organizations respond to change in both regulatory and business worlds. Making it easier for application developers to incorporate security into their work up front also reduces time to solution delivery.

These benefits are undeniable, but the ability to secure your presence across applications, data, hybrid and multi-cloud services is fraught with difficulties. For example, building an internal security operations center is cost-prohibitive for most organizations — not least of which because hiring key security talent is nearly impossible these days, given the talent shortage. Pulling in the opposite direction, boards and leadership are now looking for ways to offload risk rather than own it.

The good news is, companies no longer have to go it alone. The right partner can help companies navigate roadblocks, secure everything and maintain compliance.

Finding that “key strategic partner”

As TMG began working with AWS to understand the capabilities and challenges of cloud computing, AWS recommended Rackspace as a trusted partner that could provide TMG with the expertise to build, manage and optimize a secure and compliant environment in the cloud.

TMG engaged Rackspace to assist in the AWS environment design and build, and to provide ongoing operations and security services for its new AWS production environment, including ensuring that TMG met or exceeded requirements for both HIPAA and PCI DSS Level 1 compliance audits.

“We have been impressed by how well the Rackspace solutions work with all of the new AWS developments,” said Scott P. Jones, Chief Information Officer at TMG. “Rackspace provides us with deep subject matter expertise, delivers a wide variety of services that are critical to our operations in the cloud, and plays an important role in helping us meet our compliance standards. Rackspace is a key strategic partner for The Macaluso Group.”

As new developments come from AWS, TMG will continue to utilize Rackspace’s security and encryption expertise to optimize its business. Compliance requirements are constantly changing, and TMG will continue to partner with Rackspace to ensure that its operations and security standards evolve accordingly.