Mar/Apr 19 - ChannelVision Magazine

international Agents “This is an extreme view and effec- tively seeks to change the nature of electronic communications services by conferring liability for the end-end security of such services upon their connectivity provider,” he continues. “This is not a sustainable position as the costs and operational requirements of providing a fully secure end-end connections would be prohibitive.” Judging by the number of disclosures of breaches to supervisory authorities, Evans continues, it would appear that many companies are indeed taking GDPR seriously, presumably seeking to limit their financial exposure by coming clean. “One would assume then that, internally, they are taking appropri- ate measures to apply GDPR to avoid future breaches and penalties,” Evans says. “Guidance from regulators for companies is, however, somewhat lacking, and supervisory authorities appear overloaded. “GDPR has set a new, much-higher bar for privacy standards, and it will take time for companies to achieve full compliance. However, it has certainly started to create a climate of ‘privacy awareness,’ which did not significantly exist before GDPR.” Evans also provided some predic- tions about what the next year will bring for GDPR, as well as some insight for channel partners. “More jurisdictions will either start to adopt the GDPR principles or will create their own GDPR-strength leg- islation to match it,” Evans explains. “Companies will have to devote in- creasing levels of resources to com- plying with the various new regimes across jurisdictional boundaries. Data breaches will continue to be reported in increasing numbers until the level of ‘countermeasures’ applied by firms starts to weigh against the ever-in- creasing levels of cyber-crime.” For channel partners, he says, the GDPR window has not yet closed – but there is a degree of “privacy fatigue” that has become apparent. “This is probably because of over- load in under-resourced companies which have large numbers of third parties with whom they might require to strike Data Protection Agreements,” he says. “Companies are, in general, becoming more pragmatic and are devoting resources to areas where more sensitive personal data is being processed and are dealing with low- sensitivity data in general addenda to master service agreements.” Adapting to GDPR New challenges are arising as we move deeper into the GDPR era, creating opportunities for channel partners. One prime example is cybersecurity. “GDPR is driving enterprises to encrypt PII [personal identifiable in- formation] for good reasons; however, an unintended consequence is that encryption can give cyber attackers a safe harbor in which to operate with impunity,” says Matt Walmsley, EMEA director at Vectra. “The hyper growth of encrypted communications is blinding traditional security solutions which are reliant on deep packet inspection (DPI).” While enterprises are rightfully busy protecting PII and adhering to GDPR, Walmsley says, they still have a responsibility to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks and network Benefits of Privacy Investments Enabling agility and innovations from having appropriate data counts 42% Gaining competitive advantage versus other organizations 41% Achieving operational efficiency from having data organized and catalogued 41% Mitigating losses from data breaches 39% Reducing any sales delays due to privacy concerns from customers/prospects 37% Gaining appeal with investors 36% None of the above 3% Source: Cisco cloud and on - premises deployments included Budget OpEx Predictably : pay for services via monthly subscription , and add more when you choose , without contract change Trasition to the cloud your way : build on your existing deployment Protect your technology investment : extend and add services at your own pace Drive future adoption and growth : only pay for what they need today Get employees up and running quickly : 89 March - April, 2019 | Channel Vision