Thales expands technology partner ecosystem

Enterprises can now reduce cyber risk and secure their digital transformation initiatives in new markets including Blockchain, Cloud, DevOps, IoT and Code Signing as Thales unveils an expansion of its data protection ecosystem to more than 300 technology partners.

Through these expanded technology integrations, which now include more than 500 IT products and services, Thales is enabling more organisations to integrate its data encryption, hardware security modules, key management and access management technologies with their existing IT infrastructure and cloud services to protect applications, data and identities. This will empower organisations to implement centralised data protection and access management controls for the whole customer journey.

“The use of the cloud and digital transformation is now the cornerstone of any modern company,” said Sebastien Cano, Senior Vice President for Cloud Protection and Licensing Activities at Thales. “Vitally though, those that are truly leading the way are doing so by integrating security by design into their processes from the start. By integrating our data protection products and services with hundreds of technology partners, we can ensure customers and their sensitive data are protected throughout their entire transformation journey and remain at the forefront of their industries.”

Protecting Blockchain

Thales is collaborating with leading companies that are driving the adoption of Blockchain technology by integrating its Luna Network Hardware Security Modules (HSM) as the root of trust to secure blockchain-based transactions. Recently, Thales integrated its Luna Network HSM with CLS Group – a dedicated crypto processor that is specifically designed for the protection of the crypto key lifecycle – and Hyperledger – a multi-project open source collaborative effort hosted by The Linux Foundation, created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

Enabling Secure Cloud Transformation

Today, organisations on average use 29 cloud services for their collaboration, computing, customer relationship management and storage needs. Thales is helping companies secure the move to the cloud with cloud key management and access management solutions that integrate with the most widely used cloud platforms and services including AWS, Azure, Box, Office365 and Slack.

Thales’s SafeNet Trusted Access enables organisations to modernise their IT and Identity and Access Management (IAM) schemes, as part of their cloud transformation initiatives. For example, integrations with IGA vendors such as SailPoint enable secure identity governance and identity management workflows; Security for privileged users is achieved by securing PAM solutions such as  BeyondTrust, at the access point; and continuous authentication and access control is enabled by working with CipherCloud’s CASB solution.

Securing Hybrid IT Environments

While organisations are rapidly adopting cloud services and moving infrastructure to the cloud, the majority are maintaining hybrid IT environments. One of the key challenges they face in doing so is bridging between modern and cloud IAM schemes. To this end, SafeNet Trusted Access’s integration with F5 BIG IP enables enterprises to implement smart SSO for cloud services while securing on premises legacy applications.

“Data and applications are fast becoming the lifeblood of any organisation, no matter the industry,” said John Morgan, VP & GM Security at F5. “For any customer to truly take advantage of this digital transformation, applications and their underlying data must be secure. By joining the Thales partner ecosystem, we are continuing our long history of collaboration to help customers achieve positive business outcomes through secure digital transformation.”

Enabling Trust for DevOps

Digital certificates play an integral role in DevOps workflows, securing authentication across users, devices and applications. The secure identities and certificates establish trust within enterprise infrastructure, pipeline, code and containers.  Thales has expanded its DevOps technology partners to include Red Hat, HashiCorp, Kubernetes, VMWare Tanzu, Docker and Google for secure DevOps to enable customers to realise the benefits of automation, scale, & cloud native applications and digital transformation.

Securing the Identities and Data in IoT

In order to secure, manage and authenticate the billions of identities that will be created with the Internet of Things, Thales has recently expanded integrations for its HSMs, Data Encryption and Key Management solutions with leading providers of IoT security solutions such as Cisco, Microsoft, DigiCert, Sectigo, GlobalSign, KeyFactor and Venafi to help organisations secure the billions of identities that will be created over the next few years.

Code Signing become an essential service for businesses

Code signing has emerged as an essential ingredient to doing business for virtually any organisation that distributes code to customers and partners. Code signing verifies who the publisher of a specific set of code is and attests that it has not been modified since it was signed. Certificates delivered along with software that has been signed are a key way for users to determine whether software originates from a legitimate source before installing. Today, many software marketplaces, including mobile app stores, require code to be compliant with specific digital signing requirements.

One of those mandates is for applicants to generate and store their private key using a FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified hardware solution. This can be a Hardware Security Module (HSM) that protects the identity, whether it is the server, virtualization server or the user. Thales' HSMs take the security one step further by storing the signing material in a hardware device, thus ensuring authenticity and integrity of a code file. Thales code signing partners include Adobe, DigiCert, Garantir GlobalSign, Keyfactor, Microsoft and Venafi.