The concept of Data Centric Security is not new, but its advantages are only now becoming clear. As customers embrace disruptive technologies – cloud, mobile, NoSQL – where the availability and effectiveness of security controls are in question, Data Centric Security is an approach to securing data regardless of where it is moved. DCS is a way to leverage these new technologies without compromising data security, integrity, or compliance.

This research was prompted by increasingly frequent inquiries about how to secure “big data” clusters. The cost, complexity, and lack of packaged solutions have left many people looking for options. You can compartmentalize NoSQL servers so only a select few people and applications can access them, but then you fail to fully leverage the investment – which makes isolation a non-starter in most scenarios. That is the potential of Data Centric Security: it focuses security controls on data rather than servers or supporting infrastructure. This way the database is securely available to everyone who can use it legitimately.

This research delves into what Data Centric Security is, the challenges it addresses, and technologies to support customer use cases. We hope you find this research useful, and consider DCS as an alternative to traditional infrastructure security.

I am incredibly happy to announce that Intel Services has agreed to license this research paper – which you can download here (PDF) or visit the research library landing page here – and that we will also present a webcast on Data Centric Security, tentatively scheduled for November 18th, 2014. Sign up if you are interested. Thanks again to Intel for their support of this research!

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