empyrean benefit solutions stays ahead of the … · empyrean benefit solutions stays ahead of the...
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EMPYREAN BENEFIT SOLUTIONS STAYS AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION WITH DATA-CENTRIC ENCRYPTION FROM THALES E-SECURITY
Houston, Texas-based Empyrean is an advanced human resources technology and service company focused on administration of employee benefits for corporations of all sizes. It currently oversees the benefits packages of more than 90 organizations, managing over one million individuals.
Rick Miller, vice president of information technology for Empyrean Benefit Solutions, Inc., explained, “We provide services and software to administer benefits programs, including self-service websites for administrators and staff. We deliver a fully custom .NET structure, via our Web portal, that streamlines the required infrastructure and improves efficiencies through use of a common database.”
BUSINESS CHALLENGE“To accomplish economies of scale for our clients, each database is logically partitioned but they all reside on the same pool of hardware,” commented Miller. “A recent prospective customer shared that they had experienced a data breach prior to talking to us and this resulted in them mandating that all of their sensitive information be encrypted, irrespective of location.
“Originally we would only encrypt back-up copies of our databases before they were shipped to our offsite storage facility; we didn’t have the data encrypted within our data center, which we knew would be a problem for this new client.”
TECHNICAL CHALLENGEEmpyrean handles massive amounts of sensitive employee data every day and while its customers need robust levels of security, there are some complicated considerations. “Our clients understandably want to know about our security procedures, such as how their data is destroyed if they should retire from using our services. But because the storage process didn’t differentiate between individual clients, it wasn’t feasible for us to go to the back-up media and erase a specific part of it,” noted Miller.
“ Vormetric solutions from Thales e-Security provide us with a high degree of control over how data is encrypted. For Empyrean the biggest benefit is it enables us to offer a secure cloud solution that sets us apart from our competition because of its data-centric approach to security.” ”
– Rick Miller, vice president of information technology,
Empyrean Benefit Solutions, Inc.
“ In our sales process we now promote the fact that we encrypt data at rest because there are relatively few competitors that can say the same. Thales e-Security has given us another competitive edge.”
– Rick Miller, vice president of information technology,
Empyrean Benefit Solutions, Inc.
Americas – Thales e-Security Inc. 900 South Pine Island Road, Suite 710, Plantation, FL 33324 USA • Tel:+1 888 744 4976 or +1 954 888 6200 • Fax:+1 954 888 6211 • E-mail: [email protected] Pacific – Thales Transport & Security (HK) Lt, Unit 4101-3, 41/F, Sunlight Tower, 248 Queen’s Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong • Tel:+852 2815 8633 • Fax:+852 2815 8141 • E-mail: [email protected], Middle East, Africa – Meadow View House, Long Crendon, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP18 9EQ • Tel:+44 (0)1844 201800 • Fax:+44 (0)1844 208550 • E-mail: [email protected]
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SOLUTIONThe company wanted to have a security solution that would set it apart from the competition and that would be sufficiently flexible to scale with client growth and accommodate individual customer needs.
Miller recalled his search for the right solution, “Our original desktop encryption product turned out not to be recommended for SQL servers and it lacked the necessary key management capabilities. We also looked at a native SQL server encryption product, but this compromised our flexibility and actually required platform changes that we just didn’t have time for.
“We knew we needed an enterprise-class solution, so started researching alternative options; the Vormetric solutions really stood out. The ability to execute data at rest encryption, very straightforward key management and negligible impact on performance really differentiated it from the competition. We undertook a month long proof of concept and, very importantly, demonstrated that Vormetric Transparent Data Encryption gave us the ability to place private keys on specific information and be able to pin-point that data within the back-ups, which was critical for meeting our clients’ data destruction requirements.”
The deployment of Vormetric Transparent Data Encryption proved to be seamless and had minimal impact on Empyrean’s clients. “We installed it across our whole environment, giving us the ability to fully leverage the sophisticated key management capabilities and to perform targeted data destruction, if needed,” recounted Miller. “The Thales e-Security consultants’ performance was excellent and they were always able to give us answers whenever we had any questions.”
RESULTSIntegrating the capabilities of Vormetric Transparent Data Encryption into its offerings is giving Empyrean tangible competitive advantage. Miller stated, “Across the board we’re seeing demand for far more rigorous search and procurement processes; having Vormetric encryption enables Empyrean to demonstrate its commitment to protecting the integrity of all of our clients’ data and that we really understand their requirements.”
Miller likes the partnership that Empyrean has formed with Thales e-Security. He noted, “The experience I’ve had has exceeded expectations; I work with a lot of technology companies and implementing the Vormetric solution has been remarkably smooth. It has quickly proved to be a very stable solution in our environment. I’m extremely happy.”
There are many powerful aspects of the Vormetric architecture: “The scalability of the solution means that there are no restrictions on how far or how fast Empyrean can grow. The data-centric strategy gives us the control and granularity our clients are demanding. And Thales e-Security’s capabilities to handle data located in physical, virtual or cloud environments provide us with great flexibility. We’re confident that we can accommodate the data security requirements of even our most creative customers!” asserted Miller
ABOUT THALES E-SECURITYThales e-Security is the leader in advanced data security solutions and services that deliver trust wherever information is created, shared or stored. We ensure that the data belonging to companies and government entities is both secure and trusted in any environment – on-premise, in the cloud, in data centers or big data environments – without sacrificing business agility. Security doesn’t just reduce risk, it’s an enabler of the digital initiatives that now permeate our daily lives – digital money, e-identities, healthcare, connected cars and with the internet of things (IoT) even household devices. Thales provides everything an organization needs to protect and manage its data, identities and intellectual property and meet regulatory compliance – through encryption, advanced key management, tokenization, privileged user control and high assurance solutions. Security professionals around the globe rely on Thales to confidently accelerate their organization’s digital transformation. Thales e-Security is part of Thales Group.
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VORMETRIC ENCRYPTION MANAGES DATA ACROSS FULL INFORMATION LIFE CYCLEBusiness Need:
Offer clients high-granularity data encryption capabilities that don’t currently exist in the benefits industry
Technology Need: Provide ability to locate and manipulate encrypted data at any point in the information’s life cycle
Thales e-Security Solution: Vormetric Transparent Data Encryption Thales e-Security Consulting
Result: Achieved competitive advantage with data-centric encryption, deployed across infrastructure without adversely impacting operations or performance