Security First Corp
Advanced Security and High Availability Solutions for IT Infrastructures

The benefits of moving to the cloud are clear—scalability, on-demand access, and budget-friendliness. However, data security and privacy continue to be the largest inhibitors to cloud adoption. Before IT leaders embrace the cloud model, they must be assured that their data will be secure in the cloud. To do this, they need to subscribe to a data security solution from a provider that can offer enterprise-class advanced security that is highly scalable and includes performance features designed to handle their customers’ most important workloads.

“Security First Corp. is dedicated to developing groundbreaking security and high availability solutions for IT infrastructures that adapt and scale with the explosive growth of digital storage. Our business partner, IBM, is addressing this need and has developed several solutions for protecting customer data, building software and services around their cloud platform based on our patented SPx™ technology,” points out Mark O’Hare, President and CEO of Security First Corp.—a company that delivers software-defined, data-centric security solutions that provide advanced data protection, integrity and high availability. IBM has partnered with Security First to develop a portfolio of IBM solutions that deliver data privacy, security, survivability, and reduce the cost of storage both on-premises and in the cloud.

Security First’s SecureParser® extended (SPx) technology is the security foundation of several of IBM’s solutions. SPx combines encryption with multi-factor secret sharing into a FIPS 140-2 certified core. “SPx installs directly onto the client’s server without disrupting existing network security solutions,” says O’Hare. SPx technology encrypts a file and then splits it at the bit level into a user-defined number of shares. These bits are randomized with a unique key which is different than the encryption keys. All of the file level keys are wrapped, split, and then stored internally with a FIPS 140-2 certified, simplified key manager that eliminates the need for a bulk key-store.

“We enhance IBM’s solutions with our advanced data-centric security creating a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

We enhance IBM’s solutions with our advanced data-centric security creating a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

IBM Cloud Data Encryption Services (ICDES), for instance, is a homogeneous way for enterprise servers to protect and control access to all data,” reveals O’Hare. ICDES integrates with existing servers in public or private clouds, allowing an enterprise to selectively determine which directories of data to protect.

IBM’s Cloud Infrastructure for Analytics (with Secure Hadoop), on the other hand, protects Big Data stored in Hadoop clusters. The ability to analyze growing volumes of data to derive business insights has become imperative for businesses of any size. To support the demand for data analytics, IT departments are increasingly turning to the cloud. With Secure Hadoop, built-in security protects the data being transported to the cloud where it will be analyzed by the Hadoop cluster, enabling end-to-end protection of data. “If a client is performing analytics with petabytes of data, such as analyzing DNA samples, Hadoop performs analysis on the secured data. When the answer is revealed, the secure Hadoop connector keeps both the data and the analysis results secure whether that data is at-rest or in-motion,” informs O’Hare.

Major clients of IBM, from insurance companies to banks, use IBM solutions to secure their data and reduce their TCO. “Refining solutions to better protect data is our main focus. Through our partnership with IBM, we are working to integrate SPx technology into a broad spectrum of solutions that enhance performance, improve scalability, and reduce risk for their clients,” concludes O’Hare.