Securing confidentiality before outsourcing - Siemens GS IT (VS-NfD)

When even the slightest visibility is unacceptable, it's not the good concept that counts - but flawless implementation.

The situation

Siemens GS IT wanted to hand over the support of a central SAP BW reporting to an external service provider. But the system carried strictly confidential data subject to a classification level that must not be accessible to everyone. "Reliability and perfection were essential to the collaboration," says Mamun Natour, IT manager at Siemens - at this level of security, even the slightest visibility would have been unacceptable.

How we helped

We combined data-analytics, BI and security and data-protection expertise and formed the bridge between business units and IT. A first, purely algorithmic approach would have endangered the integrity of a system with millions of new records each day - so we chose a hybrid path: precise analysis algorithms, backed by a new, tailor-made authorisation concept, implemented entirely in ABAP. The search algorithm reliably finds every place where relevant data may be scattered - and even uncovered previously unknown areas.

What remained

The confidential information is fully protected against unauthorised access. The authorisation roles are cut so that the support team can do its daily work - without insight into VS-NfD-relevant data. A project with the highest security demands, brought cleanly to completion.