Rackspace Launches New Privacy and Data Protection Offering

According to a recent Forrester Research report, an alarming 49 percent of global network security decision-makers report that they experienced at least one breach during the past 12 months. The continued increase in security related incidents is forcing Chief Risk and Chief Compliance officers in particular to reevaluate the way their organization handles sensitive customer data to ensure that it is both secure and accessible only by authorized users. The new offering provides businesses with a fully managed data protection service, including data classification, data access policies, encryption and activity reporting, which can be easily integrated with existing applications without requiring code changes.

"We’ve been protecting Rackspace customers for more than 15 years," said Christy Schumann, general manager of Rackspace Managed Security. "Cyber attacks are becoming more sophisticated and breaches involving unauthorized access to customer data are more common, but many businesses lack the in-house resources and expertise to deal with these threats. The PDP offering is an ideal fit for these organizations, as it allows Rackspace experts to manage the process for helping to ensure data is protected, while helping businesses meet increasingly strict compliance requirements for securing data in different regions."

Rackspace’s Privacy and Data Protection solution provides businesses with a range of security and compliance benefits, including:

• Understanding Risks Associated with Data — Helps customers to understand, identify and document the most sensitive data in their environments.
• Enhanced Data Protection — Deploys technology platforms to restrict access to approved company personnel and processes, while generating detailed information about unauthorized access by users, applications and systems to sensitive data.
• Detailed Compliance Reporting — Delivers detailed monthly reporting to provide customers with a comprehensive view of their data usage and how it is being protected, as well helps customers meet their compliance requirements in many regions including certain provisions in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and PCI-DSS.

As part of the PDP solution, Rackspace continues to collaborate with industry leading technology partners to ensure the highest quality services, utilizing the Vormetric Transparent Data Encryption platform from Thales. As Peter Galvin, vice president of strategy for Thales eSecurity, notes "Enterprises today must inevitably confront an increasingly complicated threat landscape. Our world, which now includes the cloud, big data, the IoT and Docker, calls for robust IT security strategies that protect data wherever it is created, shared or stored. Businesses need to invest in privacy-by-design defense mechanisms — such as encryption with access controls — to protect valuable data and intellectual property and view security as a business enabler that facilitates digital transformation and builds trust between partners and customers."

The PDP offering compliments Rackspace’s existing Managed Security and Compliance Assistance solutions, which leverage Rackspace security experts to help customers with strategic planning for best practice multi-cloud security, tactical day-to-day security monitoring and threat analysis to deter, detect and respond to potential threats around the clock.

The Rackspace Privacy and Data Protection offering is now in general availability for customers in all regions.