Protecting data centres’ operations against security breaches

IN today’s world, a company cannot afford to experience breaches of customer information, transactional data or other business-critical information given the volume of business taking place online and consequences of such breaches.

Compromised data affects customers, business partners, and financial institutions as a single incident can severely damage a company’s reputation and its ability to conduct business effectively. Data breaches lead to catastrophic loss of sales due to damaged reputation and business relationships, lawsuits, insurance claims, cancelled accounts, payment card issuer fines and possible government fines or other liabilities.

From large corporations to small ones, according to the Chief Executive Officer of MainOne Cables, Ms. Funke Opeke, compliance with security standards is vital because keeping customer data secure is of upmost importance. “Therefore, when considering collocation at a commercial data center, compliance to global security standards, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Information Security Standards, should feature as a key selection criteria.”

Collocating equipment with a provider that is compliant to global standards provides the assurance that your systems and sensitive customer information remains secure.

The PCI DSS accreditation is the most comprehensive, internationally recognized data security consisting of robust and comprehensive standards, and supporting materials to enhance payment card data security. These include a framework of specifications, tools, measurements and support resources to help organizations ensure the safe handling of cardholder information at every step. It provides an actionable framework for developing a robust payment card data security process including prevention, detection and appropriate reaction to security incidents.

The ISO 27001 standard is a globally recognized Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard, which specifies the requirements for a business to establish, implement, review, monitor, manage and maintain effective information security management systems. By preventing and minimizing the impacts of security incidents, ISMS ensures business continuity, customer confidence, protect business investments and opportunities, or reduce damage to the business. Ultimately, the standard ensures best practice for security controls to protect information assets. Outsourcing Data Center operations to a Collocation Provider that imbibes global security policies and procedures to mitigate data breaches remains the best choice for any business.

Security in the Data Center cannot be over emphasized and MainOne’s Tier III Data Center, MDX-I, recently subjected its operations to rigorous process improvements and audits to ensure compliance and certification on these key security standards. MDX-i was certified following a comprehensive ISO27001 audit carried out by British Standard Institution (BSI) group, a business standards company that helps organizations all over the world make excellence a habit.