DNS - Pelephone Picks Sentrigo to Secure Sensitive Customer Data

In a bid to ensure their sensitive customer data is protected, Israeli mobile operator and telecommunications provider Pelephone Communications announced it has chosen Sentrigo Inc. for their Hedgehog Enterprise and Hedgehog IDentifier solutions.

Officials with the database security software provider said Sentrigo's comprehensive database security technology protects high volumes of sensitive data stored in Pelephone's database and helps the company to ensure that its customer's personal data base is safe from unauthorized access and exposure.
 

Sharon Alalouf, software development and infrastructure department manager in Pelephone's Engineering Division, "The importance and sensitivity of the data stored in our databases led us to conduct a thorough review of the leading security tools currently available on the market."

Sentrigo solutions were chosen by the company because they provided maximum security and consistent protection of databases as well as seamlessly integrated with the company's existing security products and other infrastructure systems, Alalouf said.

With Hedgehog Enterprise, potential malicious activity is detected in real-time and sessions that include any "suspicious" users are terminated immediately.

Also, Hedgehog IDentifier offer comprehensive reporting and auditing of activity as well as complete end-user accountability on all databases, even if a pooled connection has been used or the activity originated from a privileged user.

Slavik Markovich, CTO of Sentrigo told TMCnet that companies - and their auditors, are realizing the basic perimeter security implemented over the past 10 years is simply not sufficient in protecting sensitive data. 

"Every week (or even every day) there is yet another announcement of some major company being breached.  The costs of a breach in terms of notifying customers, and the damage to the company's reputation can easily reach tens of millions of dollars."

Also, Markovich said that in telecommunications, the amount of data - and the sensitive nature of that data - has changed dramatically over the past 5 years as mobile applications and smartphone use has increased.

"So, now, in addition to the existing private data like account numbers, billing info, call history, and so on, that has always been a security concern, now we see corporate e-mail traffic, and voice messages via unified communications solutions, passing through the carrier networks or stored on carrier servers.  Companies like Pelephone are moving aggressively to protect this information, to satisfy corporate end-users' expectations of privacy."

As for the future of technology and security, Markovich predicts data security will continue to be a major focus for all industries, but for telecommunications in particular, as more and more applications go mobile and as people increasingly use their mobile devices for payment processing. 

"At the same time, hackers are becoming more sophisticated, with automated tools to quickly attack databases using published vulnerabilities," Markovich told TMCnet.

"One key to staying ahead of threats is to move towards real-time protection, both in terms of alerting and blocking attacks as they occur instead of simply logging activity for review later, and by updating systems with current threat data much like the anti-virus vendors do for endpoint protection." 

Stefania Viscusi is an assignment editor for TMCnet, covering voice and Voice over IP technologies. She also oversees production of TMCnet's e-Newsletters in the areas of Internet telephony and speech technology. To read more of Stefania's articles, please visit her columnist page.