CloudMask - Top 10 Security Solution Providers 2017

FEBRUARY - 2017
GOVCIOOUTLOOK.COM
Top 10 Security Solution Providers 2017
From the U.S. presidential election being interfered to
government IT assets and public utilities being breached,
federal agencies are no longer alien to cyberattacks. The
intrusions not only disrupt the everyday processes, but
also pose a great risk to citizen data. Government organizations are
required to be more vigilant in safeguarding their infrastructure,
firewalling internal data and networks, and zeroing in on cyber
criminals. However, the agencies find themselves in a catch-22
situation where they have to incorporate new age technologies
like mobility and cloud to offer better citizen services, while also
effectively dealing with security lacunas integral to them.
This impels decision makers to prioritize the security of data
and assets during resource planning. Next generation, sophisticated
security solutions de-risk the state of affairs for federal bodies
and create a safe operating environment. The time has come for
governments to be proactive and collaborate with the private sector
to take their cybersecurity measures to the next level.
Keeping up with the industry changes, security solution
providers are today delivering superior encryption, access control,
and other novel security mechanisms that can be embedded in
digital as well as hardware assets to protect government networks.
In this scenario, to help CIOs find the right security solution
provider, a distinguished panel comprising CEOs, CIOs, analysts
and the Government CIO Outlook editorial board has selected the
leading players in the arena.
In our selection, we looked at the vendor’s capability to
fulfill the burning need for cost-effective and flexible solutions
that add value to the complex security landscape. We present
to you Government CIO Outlook’s Top 10 Security Solution
Providers 2017.
CloudMask Inc.
recognized by
magazine as
Company:
CloudMask
Description:
Enables businesses to meet data
residency and privacy regulations without
the installation of any hardware or secure
gateways
An annual listing of 10 companies that are at the forefront of providing
security solutions for the government sector and
impacting the marketplace
Key Person:
Tarek El-Gillani,
Co-Founder & CTO
Website:
cloudmask.com
CIOReview
| 12| JULY 2014

TOP10
SOLUTION PROVIDERS - 2017
CloudMask
Seamless Data-Centric Protection
cybersecurity
defenses
these days are
“Most
designed to
keep the attackers out, which, history
has shown, is not a viable strategy,”
remarks Tarek El-Gillani, Co-Founder
and CTO, CloudMask. He further
draws the attention to recent events
such as the Russian intrusion in
the U.S. electoral process as a clear
example of the impact a lack of
security may have on an organization.
In this present age, there is a dire
need for rethinking how data security
is approached. To ease this situation,
CloudMask significantly reduces
the attack surface by eliminating
the impact of network, insiders, and
application breaches. Whether it is
protecting the individual privacy
or large department sensitive data,
CloudMask empowers users to take
back control over their privacy.
CloudMask ensures that
user emails, files, and
applications data can only
be seen by the organizations
and the persons they are
collaborating with
Founded in 2013 by seasoned
entrepreneurs, CloudMask developed
its product in conjunction with the
Federal Government of Canada after
winning the Canadian Innovation
Commercialization Program
(CICP). CloudMask addresses the
strict security requirements of the
sensitive government departments,
by integrating with their current
GOVERNMENT CIO OUTLOOK
26 February-2017
security infrastructure. “CloudMask
ensures that user emails, files, and
applications data can only be seen by
the organizations and the persons they
are collaborating with, and nobody
in between—administrators, cloud
providers, not even CloudMask,” states
El-Gillani. These security claims have
been validated through the Common
Criteria certification.
The firm safeguards clients’ online
accounts such as Gmail, Google Drive,
and Clio by running on end-user
devices and transparently protecting
the data before it leaves the device.
CloudMask Masking for Governments
is designed by combining on-premise
and SaaS offering. This hybrid model
is used for collaborating with external
entities, such as remote employees,
partners, and citizens, without the
need for VPN setup. At the same
time, CloudMask also protects internal
on-premise applications from insider
threats. “We allow enterprise and SaaS
developers to embed our protection
layer without the need to change their
application,” explains El-Gillani. This
allows developers to focus on end-user
functionality, leverage commonly
available infrastructure which by itself
does not meet security requirements, and
rely on CloudMask to protect the data.
“We see IoT as a great fit for our
technology since our focus lies on the
data and not on the device,” emphasizes
El-Gillani. Data-centric protection is
becoming vital due to the sheer volume of
devices and the spread of devices’ physical
locations. To this end, CloudMask
addresses these two distinctive IoT
characteristics, limited resources and the
requirement for seamless provisioning.
“With CloudMask, data is protected in
a manner ensuring that only authorized
Tarek El-Gillani
IoT devices and entities can access data and
execute commands,” adds El-Gillani.
A common use case is in enabling
departments to collaborate securely
with external entities that are not
under the same jurisdiction. Here, the
collaboration leverages publicly available
cloud and/or shared private cloud,
while the data is protected by
CloudMask at the end-user devices.
“The department centrally manages
digitally signed CloudMask policies
which enforces if and for how long a
data element may be accessed by a given
party,” explains El-Gillani.
Looking to the future, “We see
ourselves expanding our ecosystem to
integrate with other enterprise security
providers to better address critical security
issues such as Advanced Persistent
Threat,” comments El-Gillani. Besides
servicing the government segment, the
CloudMask is also growing its partnership
with SaaS and Enterprise developers to
provide them the ability to independently
create protection policies and embed them
into their applications.
CIOReview
| 13| JULY 2014