
21 Jul 2017
Why Your XaaS Company Needs PKI
Before getting started, I wanted to quickly share with you what I mean by XaaS. When I talk about 'X' as a service I am including; software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, identity as a service, communication as a service and much much more. Think of things like website creators, cloud hosted services where the subscription is accessed on a unique URL in the web browser, virtualized computing services over the internet, VoIP or internet telecommunications services.
With today’s market for cloud-based services so fiercely competitive, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. Managing a service that you believe in is great when you’re selling loads of it, but when you are just starting to launch it, you need key competitive differentiators which may be outside your normal offerings.
I know this all too well and hear this every day from my customers and prospects. Product managers just want to make their product and service AMAZING. A place where customers never have to leave the platform, they can do what they need, with ease and to the point where they couldn’t imagine a world where your product didn’t exist. That’s the dream!
I want to explain one very effective way you can take another big leap towards this dream by creating differentiation in your marketplace and getting everyone shouting about your new product feature – PKI (Public Key Infrastructure).
PKI is very much about encrypting and securing communications, something that’s on everyone’s mind these days. Security and privacy are becoming vital ingredients to any cloud-based service and your customers need them. Why not offer security built-in to your service?
In 2016, Gemalto published a report suggesting that consumers hold businesses responsible for data protection. Two thirds of respondents would be unlikely to shop/do business with an organization that experienced a breach where their personal or financial information was stolen. Just think of the huge loss Talk Talk had after their breach. They claimed it was £60m and 101,000 customers they lost, but the loss of reputation and integrity in the market is also a factor – it’s just more difficult to put a number on.
If consumers are worried, you should be too. Because now, more than ever, your customers need to secure their data and be able to prove it.
What Are the Business Drivers for PKI?
Before going into the discussion around how PKI can benefit your business, I want to discuss the business drivers for adopting PKI into your XaaS solution or service.
As well as an increased consciousness around cybersecurity, your customers need assurance that they are protecting their organizations, users and customers when using your service. It is not enough to know that the data is encrypted because hackers can still intercept that traffic and pose as a trusted organization or entity.
What Can Adding PKI to Your Service Do?
Web and Server Security –using SSL/TLS certificates to encrypt data and prove identity on websites being visited by customers.
- Secure Email – Digitally signing and encrypting emails with S/MIME certificates to prove identity of sender and reduce phishing, email snooping and data loss.
- Document Signing – Ability to digitally sign and certify PDFs or word documents with an identity to eliminate wet ink signatures, enable a paperless work environment and protect document contents from tampering.
- Timestamping– Use a third party service to achieve non-repudiation around when a transaction took place.
Legislation
One of the most compelling business drivers for PKI is, of course, legislation. Depending upon how your customers are using your service, there will be different legislation that they may need to adhered to. However, there are a couple regulations that will affect any and all organizations that do business in Europe. These are eIDAS and GDPR.
eIDAS
We have already posted plenty of content around eIDAS and what it means for businesses. So, without going over old ground, I will touch on the regulation from your customers’ perspective.
In a paperless office environment, a certain level of trust is needed. Similarly, a certain level of trust is needed if I sign a document with a pen and paper. You know the signature is mine but there is a small possibility of a forgery always involved. Digital Signatures give that added trust that a pen and ink signature cannot give.
If I sign a document using a third-party-verified Digital Certificate that only I am in possession of, we can be sure that it was indeed me who signed the document. eIDAS requires all organizations to use Digital Signatures in this way and classifies two levels of assurance (advanced and qualified), which have a higher level of identity verification that PKI can provide.
As a result of this regulation, standard wet ink signatures will start to migrate over to certificate-based signatures in order to gain more assurance.
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation is one I expect to be fully on your radar already. It’s quite rare that a regulation this strong on privacy and data comes out. However, the point is to make a change to the way companies use and handle personal data. In order to make such a large shift in business patterns and behavior, regulation must be a driving force.
The basics of the regulation are around the protection, transparency of processing and safe handling of EU citizen’s personal data (that is any one of several pieces of information that can identify an individual citizen). Penalties for non-compliance are cited as being 4% of annual revenue or 20 million EUROS, whichever is higher.
As a XaaS provider, it will be vital to display not only compliance of the regulation on how you are handling and securing your customers’ data but the ability to implement innovative product solutions that can help your customers also be compliant with the regulation. If you haven’t already, now is a great time for a product meeting or road map.
Industry Regulations
Much like legislation, being compliant with industry regulations is a must for any businesses that wants to be doing business with its customers and be seen as trustworthy. If you work in a particular industry, the benefits of showing compliance with industry regulation in your service are a must!
Some examples of regulations that will be affecting specific industries are PCI DSS (financial industry), UK Land Registry and Electronic Documents (Scotland) Regulations 2014.
The UK Land Registry, for example, has a new system which requires eSignatures to be certificate-based (Advanced Electronic Signatures under eIDAS) so that a conveyancing company can connect to the tool and control the platform and workflow.
Another example of something similar is the UK water and utilities industry. Water suppliers have been offered the ability to provide water to any commercial property as part of something called the Open Water Programme. In order to open up services, water companies must login to something called the Central Market Operating System (CMOS), for which authentication through a Digital Certificate is needed.
Risk Mitigation
Every business comes with risks such as that of a data breach, a lawsuit or a cyber-attack. Businesses can be closed as quickly as they are opened if something goes wrong and that’s why we always need someone balancing the potential gains against the potential risks to decide where the business is directed. This is why many businesses conduct audits internally and through external industry regulators.
PKI is a great way to mitigate the risks I have mentioned above. It does this by encrypting communications and data transmissions, authenticating identities of users and other endpoints, and protecting data from being altered.
An example of this working today is an educational institution handing out qualifications where PKI is used to verify that the qualifications they are handing out are indeed real and cannot be falsified.
Best Practice
While best practice might not be the easiest driver to bring to the board, coupled with regulatory and compliance drivers, it’s a win.
Even if a regulation is not strictly enforced in an industry, compliance can be a huge benefit in the long term. If more companies were compliant with the Data Protection Act (DPA) then perhaps the workload for GDPR would have been cut in half.
Your customer’s are looking for companies like you, who are managing their data effectively and putting enough precautions in place to ensure risk of a data breach is mitigated. If they can trust you enough to be secure, they can trust you enough to do business with you.
This is the same reason people get ISO or ISMS certifications, use Identity and Access Management, S/MIME, authentication and more.
Benefits of Using PKI in Your XaaS Service
Business drivers aren’t the only factor that should apply when you’re looking to add PKI to your XaaS solution, business benefits are also worth mentioning too.
Automation
Technology is improving at a fast rate, allowing us to digitize our processes and provide faster and more effective services to our customers. Digitization is currently making huge strides in the banking and IoT sector.
XaaS providers are all about serving customers in a digital form, while making their processes faster and easier. Who said certificate management needs to be any different? With automated certificate renewal processes, encryption, authentication, signing and timestamping processes can continue to happen effectively without being ground to a halt every time a certificate needs to be renewed or expires.
Competitive Edge
Giving your service something that your competition does not have allows you to gain market share. Alternatively, your competitors could all be offering something that you are not and you might need PKI to jump on board and close a gap in your product/market.
You could be offering a competitive edge by simply keeping your customers inside your platform by offering the security service they need. If your customers can sign, encrypt and authenticate using your service, they have no reason to leave the platform and their processes become more efficient as a result.
Customer Experience and Satisfaction
As I mentioned above, keeping your customers inside the platform can improve processes and efficiency. This in turn, makes for a much happier customer. If you are able to reduce time off your customer’s working day or delight them by giving them ability to do something easily when it was once before a painstakingly long process, you are winning over hearts and minds. Your customers will be more inclined to stay with your service when they are happy – enabling you to reduce customer churn and the high cost of constantly needing to acquire new customers.
Corporate Governance
The system of rules and processes that control a business involving the balancing interests of many company stakeholders can be, in part, solved with PKI. Take the example of a company called Passageways, an online board of directors meeting portal. In order to make governance simpler, they created an app where board meetings can be documented and shared for collaboration during and in between meetings.
In the old way of doing things, minutes would be paper-based. Today directors are mobile and often not in the same room so they need a platform they can use like Passageways. More than 200 hours are spent a year on board meetings, often sensitive topics are discussed. With the introduction of an online platform, security measures have to be put into play to authenticate users and encrypt information as well as digitally sign final board meeting minutes. PKI is enabling this as it is built-in to their service.
Making XaaS and PKI Mix
If you’re as convinced as we are that PKI will help you solve challenges, meet compliance and give you a competitive edge, the next step is to convince your stakeholders. Please get in touch and I can work with you to create a pitch.
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GlobalSign Privacy Policy Version 3.1
Updated June 5, 2018
GlobalSign respects your right to privacy. This privacy policy has been developed to inform you about the privacy practices followed by GlobalSign in connection with its websites, products and services. This privacy policy does not apply to GlobalSign services offered by or through our partners, resellers or other third parties, or other third party services or websites, and we encourage you to read the privacy policies of those parties.
This privacy policy will inform you about what data is collected, how we use such data, where data is processed, how you may opt out of your data being used, the security provisions around storing your data and how to correct, update or delete your data.
1. Data Controller
The data controller for personal data collected within the EU is GMO GlobalSign, Ltd., having its registered offices at Springfield House, Sandling Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 2LP, United Kingdom. All questions or requests regarding the processing of data may be addressed to: dpo@globalsign.com.
2. Collection of Personal Information
We collect information from you when you (i) place an order for a GlobalSign digital certificate product or other product or service, (ii) scan your servers for digital certificates using our Certificate Inventory Tool (CIT), (iii) apply for access to our managed service platforms, (iv) subscribe to our newsletter, (v) use our online chat service, (vi) download a white paper, (vii) register for a webinar, (viii) respond to a survey, (ix) fill out a form for pre/post sales assistance, (x) open a support ticket, or (xi) your use of social media.
GlobalSign is a Certification Authority and trusted third party. To fulfill requests for digital certificates or other products or services, you may be asked to enter your name, email address, physical address, phone number, credit card information and/or organizational details or other personal information.
- - Contact information such as your name, email address, physical address, and phone number.
- - Relationship information that helps us do business with you, such as the types of products and services that may interest you, contact and product preferences, languages, marketing preferences and demographic data.
- - Transactional information about how you interact with us, including purchases, inquiries, customer account information, billing and credit card information, organizational details, transaction and correspondence history, and information about how you use and interact with our website.
We may develop and acquire additional information about you using third-party (public and private) data sources such as third party databases and government agencies, as well as your browsing and purchasing history in order to process orders for certificates and to improve our services.
GlobalSign treats personal information as confidential, except for the information included in an issued digital certificate. Such information may be verified using third party commercial and government resources, and as such, is deemed to be public information.
3. Purpose of Processing
Your personal data will be used for the purposes specified below:
3.1 To process applications for GlobalSign products and services
Your information is used to provide our products and services and order processing as well as to conduct business transactions such as billing.
3.2 To improve customer service
Your information helps us to more effectively respond to your pre/post sales requests and provide technical support.
3.3 To send renewal notices
The email address you provide for order processing may be used to send you renewal notices for your expiring digital certificate.
3.4 To send service updates
In addition, subject to your consent where required, we may send you new service updates, security updates, related product or service information, and status updates on maintenance windows or service availability.
3.5 To tell you about our products and services
Subject to your consent where required, we may send you periodic company newsletters, information about our products and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of other GlobalSign products and services, your attendance at GlobalSign sponsored marketing events such as webinars, your requests for information about similar products and services, or your sharing of data with social media sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook.
4. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data
We will process your data for the purpose of performance of our contract with you or the legitimate interest of GlobalSign, which are our usual business activities. In other cases, we will request your consent for the processing of the personal data you may submit.
Your refusal to provide personal data to us for certain products and services may hinder us from fulfilling your order for those products or services. Also, if you deny or withdraw your consent to use personal data or opt out of receiving information about GlobalSign products and services this may result in you not being made aware of renewal notices, periodic company newsletters, new service updates, security updates, related product or service information, and status updates on maintenance windows or service availability. See Section 10 below for how to withdraw your consent.
5. Use of Cookies and web beacons
The GlobalSign Certificate Center (GCC) uses cookies to enable the fulfillment of services. Cookies may be used when you log into the GCC, purchase products or use certain GCC functions.
In addition, like most online businesses, GlobalSign uses cookies and web beacons on our websites and through marketing related emails to gather and analyze some personal data such as the visitor's IP address, browser type, ISP, referring page, operating system, date/time and basic geographical information.
We use cookies and web beacons to compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can gauge the effectiveness of our communications and offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business.
First time visitors may choose to not have any activity monitoring cookies set in their browser. We use an opt-out identification cookie to tag these users as having made this decision. Those cookies that pertain to site performance, experience improvement and marketing are programmed not to execute when an opt-out cookie is present in a visitor's browser. Opt-out cookies persist until a visitor clears their browser cookies, or until their expiration one year after the set date. A visitor is required to opt out again after one year in order to disable any activity monitoring cookies.
More details of GlobalSign's use of cookies can be found on our website at https://www.globalsign.com/en/repository/cookie-policy/
6. Use of application logs for diagnostics or to gather statistical information
Our servers automatically record information ("Application Log Data") created by your use of our services. Application Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device and application IDs, search terms, and cookie information. We use this information to diagnose and improve our services. Except as stated in section 8 (Data Retention), we will either delete the Application Log Data or remove any account identifiers, such as your username, full IP address, or email address, after 12 months.
7. Sharing of Information and Transfers of Data
We do not sell or trade your personal information to outside parties.
Within GlobalSign: GlobalSign is a global organization with business processes and technical systems in various countries. As such, we may share information about you within our group company and transfer it to countries in the world where we do business in connection with the uses identified in section 3 above and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. In cases where your personal data is transferred to countries that do not provide an adequate level of protection according to the European Commission ('adequacy decision'), we ensure your data is protected by entering into agreements containing standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission with each of our group companies. A copy of these agreements may be obtained by contacting us as outlined in section 15 below.
Third Parties: We may also transfer your personal data to trusted third parties and our partners in order to serve purposes that are specified in section 3 above. GlobalSign uses a third party to process credit card payments and provides credit card numbers and identifying financial data directly to the third party credit card processor.
In circumstances where data is shared with such third parties, they are required to comply with confidentiality terms included in our data processing agreements. This prohibits such third parties from selling, trading, using, marketing or otherwise distributing GlobalSign customer data.
As Required by Law: We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law or protect our rights, property, or safety.
It is our policy to notify customers of requests for their data from law enforcement unless we are prohibited from doing so by statute or court order. Law enforcement officials who believe that notification would jeopardize an investigation should obtain an appropriate court order or other process that specifically precludes member notification, such as an order issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §2705(b).
Mergers & Acquisitions: We may also disclose your personal information to third parties who may take over the operation of our site or who may purchase any or all of our assets, including your personal information. We will contact you using the details you provide if there is any change in the person controlling your information.
8. International Transfers
The third parties, subsidiaries and affiliates to which your personal information can be disclosed may be located throughout the world. Therefore, information may be sent to countries having different privacy protection standards than your country of residence. In such cases, we take measures to ensure that your personal information receives an adequate level of protection, which includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses to protect your personal information.
9. Data retention
The personal information we collect is retained for no longer than necessary to fulfil the stated purposes in section 2 above or for a period specifically required by law or regulation that GlobalSign is obligated to follow.
To meet public CA audit requirements as detailed in the GlobalSign Certification Practice Statement, personal data used to fulfill verification of certain types of digital certificate applications will be retained for a minimum of 10 years depending on the class of product or service and may be retained in either a physical or electronic format. Please refer to the GlobalSign Certification Practice Statement for full details.
After the retention period is over, GlobalSign securely disposes or anonymizes your personal information in order to prevent loss, theft, misuse, or unauthorized access.
10. Opting out; withdrawing consent
If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.
Renewal notices may be cancelled on a per digital certificate basis by logging into your GlobalSign Certificate Center (GCC) account and disabling renewal notices.
Email preferences for CIT related/collected information can be updated and changed within CIT.
If GlobalSign is processing your personal data based on your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time via the GlobalSign Preference Centre at https://downloads.globalsign.com/acton/media/2674/preference-center-login or by contacting us at one of the addresses shown in section 15 below.
11. Your Rights
You are responsible for providing GlobalSign with true, accurate, current and complete personal information. Also, you are responsible to maintain and promptly update the information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete.
You have the right to access and modify your personal data stored on GlobalSign systems. You can exercise your rights by contacting us in writing. We will require you to provide identification in order to verify the authenticity as the data subject. We will make reasonable efforts to respond to and process your request as required by law.
To the extent of applicable law, you may have the right to request erasure of your personal information, restriction of processing as it applies to you, object to processing and the right to data portability. You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or if we have reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we have the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future services.
12. How we protect your information
We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL).
After a transaction, your transaction-related information will be kept on file to meet audit requirements and facilitate renewals. We do not retain any credit card details.
13. Relevant laws
GlobalSign commits itself to protect the personal information submitted by applicants and subscribers for its public certification services. GlobalSign declares to fully respect all rights established and laid out in European Union and Member States' laws and regulations:
- - European Directive 95/46 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and as replaced by Regulation EU 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (the EU General Data Protection Regulation); and
- - Provisions of the GlobalSign CPS.
14. Changes to our Privacy Policy
If we make material changes to our privacy policy, we will inform customers by emailing a notice of the availability of a new version with a link to the new version.
15. Contact Us
If you have any inquires, or questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:
- We use the data you submit only for purposes identified in section 3 of this privacy policy.
- You have the right to review your personal data that GlobalSign holds and check it for accuracy.
- You have the right to correct data in the case that errors may be found in our records.
- You have the right to request that any of your personal data be erased. i.e. right to be forgotten.
- You have the right to obtain and reuse use your personal data for your own purposes
- You have the right to request that GlobalSign restrict the processing of your personal data under certain circumstances.
- You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data.
14. Changes to our Privacy Policy
If we make material changes to our privacy policy, we will inform customers by emailing a notice of the availability of a new version with a link to the new version.
15. Contact Us
If you have any inquires, or questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:
https://support.globalsign.com/
https://www.globalsign.com/en/company/contact/support/
https://jp.globalsign.com/support/
or
Deputy Data Protection Officer
GMO GlobalSign, Ltd.
Springfield House Sandling Road
Maidstone, Kent ME 14 2LP
United Kingdom
dpo@globalsign.com
16. Our Office Locations
GMO GlobalSign K.K., Tokyo, Japan
GMO GlobalSign Ltd., Maidstone, Kent, UK
GMO GlobalSign N/V, Leuven, Belgium
GMO GlobalSign, Inc., Portsmouth, NH, USA
GMO GlobalSign Russia LLC , Moskva, Russia
GMO GlobalSign Pte. Ltd, Anson, Singapore
GMO GlobalSign Certificate Services Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, India
GlobalSign China Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China
GMO GlobalSign Inc., Manila, Philippines
GMO GlobalSign FZ-LLC, Dubai, UAE