Pure Security 01.2

PURE STORAGE SECURITYModern Digital Fortresses Require Solid Foundations

© Pure Storage 2014 | 2

Protecting vital information from accidents and theft is the key to

success for any organization. But in some sectors it goes far beyond

just good practice. When working in healthcare, the financial industry

or government, having robust security also becomes an ironclad

legal responsibility. Data theft and even accidental breaches won’t

just kill a contract. It can lead to heavy fines, a loss of reputation,

and in extreme cases even endanger lives. Because of that,

organizations working in those fields spend a lot of time, money

and energy bolting on security enhancements to their systems in

an effort to try and keep data safe from hackers and snoopers who

are always targeting them. But where those efforts end up often

depends on where they start.

Supplementary security can always be applied, more or less

effectively, to any existing system. But there’s a better way to

protect critical infrastructure. Smart organizations have learned that

automatically securing the most basic component of any system,

the storage medium itself, is the best protection to keep vital data

from slipping into the wrong hands. That’s why building a digital

fortress on top of a FlashArray from Pure Storage is a perfect choice

for organizations working in healthcare, government or the financial

industry. Robust security and lightning fast performance are built-in,

automatic and unbreakable before the system even powers up.

MODERN DIGITAL FORTRESSES REQUIRE SOLID FOUNDATIONS


Almost nowhere else is the need to protect information more legality mandated than in the healthcare field. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) states that all personal information from patients needs to be protected by firms that provide care. And it casts a wide net over what constitutes working in healthcare. Any provider of medical or other health services that bills or is paid for healthcare in the normal course of business falls under HIPPA.

HIPPA was enacted with the hope that paper records would be transitioned over into an electronic format, which was considered more secure at the time. The portability part of the law spells that out by requiring data to move with patients to other facilities, doctors and even insurance plans. Organizations are required to keep all personally identifiable information private and secure regardless of its portability.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) act gave HIPPA some more teeth in 2009, notably increasing fines on organizations that allow personal patient information slip into the wrong hands. Under HITECH, fines can be as high as $1.5 million for each and every violation. Even a tiny breach of security, something as simple as not encrypting a single patient’s information, can lead to millions of dollars in fines. A full scale breach with the theft of hundreds or thousands of patient records would be catastrophic for any organization.

But neither an accidental slipup nor a major, coordinated intrusion will happen with a FlashArray from Pure Storage acting as a digital sentry. Everything that goes onto the array is protected automatically using the Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm and 256-bit keys. Nothing can be stored there, not a patient record or a name, not a phone or social security number, or anything else protected under HIPPA without it being locked down with AES-256 encryption. There won’t be any oversights that lead to data being left unprotected. The FlashArray simply won’t allow that to happen.

Encrypting every bit of data that goes onto any drive in the FlashArray might seem like a protection method that could slow down operations. And with a less-advanced storage array, it would. But the process of protecting one hundred

percent of all data comes with no tradeoffs in performance using the Pure Storage solution. The FlashArray uses a combination of both software-based encryption and an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) to provide the muscle for the encrypting and decrypting process. When used in conjunction with the naturally speedy read and write times offered by the flash drives, the FlashArray is able to perform much more efficiently with quicker input/output (IO) operations than even less-advanced storage solutions operating unencrypted. The FlashArray offers compliance with HIPPA regulations and protects organizations from the heavy fines associated with HITECH violations with no tradeoffs in performance.

But just encrypting information, even a hundred percent of it, won’t give organizations total compliance with HIPPA regulations. The data itself has to be managed intelligently so that users are only allowed to see the information they are authorized to access. Technically, even if a system is completely protected, having an unauthorized person within an organization able to access restricted information could be considered a violation of the HITECH guidelines.

PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION IN HEALTHCARE

A full scale breach with the theft of hundreds or thousands of patient records would be catastrophic for any organization.


To protect data internally as well as from external snooping, the Pure Storage FlashArray uses robust role-based access control (RBAC), which brings it into compliance with HIPPA. All RBAC accounts are tied to system administrators, so that only users with storage administration rights can give access to any application or host. No regular user can modify permissions to gain access to content they should not be able to see under HIPPA regulations.

But even administrators, with their ability to control access, are not completely unregulated. Administrators of the FlashArray can also be set up according to their roles, so that just because someone has administrator privileges doesn’t mean they have full access to everything protected by the system. They might be able to configure the system or troubleshoot issues, but can be denied the ability to read or capture protected information stored inside.

The FlashArray also automatically produces a complete audit trail of everything that goes on within the system, satisfying another HIPPA mandate. All configurations are logged into the system as well as any changes that are made. That way anyone attempting to change access permissions, even an IT administrator, has that action logged and time stamped. Security officials monitoring the system can then choose to examine suspicious activity. And because the information is

saved and protected just like anything else stored with the FlashArray, this can either be done immediately or at a later time as part of an investigation.

Implementing a Pure Storage FlashArray for organizations working within the healthcare field can both improve performance and lock down any HIPPA or HITECH vulnerabilities right from the start. This won’t preclude additional security being added to the system, but full AES-256-bit encryption, role-based access control and the generation of a complete audit trail means that personal information will be kept secure from any unauthorized eyes.

PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION IN HEALTHCARE cont.

Implementing a Pure Storage FlashArray can both improve performance and lock down any HIPPA or HITECH vulnerabilities right from the start.


The financial industry has only slightly less regulations imposed on it than healthcare. Although laws like the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which requires audit trails and verifiable financial reporting, don’t specifically speak to the need to secure data, the industry generally tries to follow plans like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard to keep information safe.

Within the financial sector, the biggest problem isn’t government fines if personal data should slip out, but more so the fact that companies working in finance are generally the most attacked group in the world. Not only is the information they protect valuable, but it also can lead to actual money for hackers who are able to penetrate a company’s data at rest. Stealing credit card information, bank account passwords and user-logins can be a highly profitable business in its own right for professional thieves, so the financial sector is always trying to keep one step ahead of the constant attacks. And even though there aren’t a lot of laws in place to punish companies that fall prey to hacks, in most cases the company is going to be held liable if they allow their customer’s money to be stolen. Even beyond that, the loss of reputation following a breach, especially a large and well-publicized one, could lead to disaster.

As such, even though it’s not as tightly regulated as the healthcare industry, the financial sector generally tries to be as secure as possible, even going so far as to lock down systems with draconian schemes and highly redundant protections. The problem with that approach is that too much security can become a wall blocking authorized users from getting to the information they need. And that is where the Pure Storage FlashArray can step up and solve two problems at the same time.

The same full encryption that protects the health care industry is also employed to lock down financial data. Nothing written to a FlashArray is unencrypted, so there are no back doors or loopholes that a hacker can exploit. Every byte is protected with AES-256 encryption on every drive in the entire array.

In addition to not slowing down performance, the Pure Storage FlashArray does not require any external key management for encryption. The FlashArray uses a unique internal key management mechanism that keeps the burden off of both the administrators and users. No longer do administrators have to purchase expensive third-party key management programs and then spend weeks in training seminars learning how to make it all work within their organization. The patent-pending internal key management system on every FlashArray comes as part of the storage medium itself. Beyond getting a huge benefit included when simply buying a new FlashArray, Pure Storage’s unique key management solution also doesn’t require user intervention because the keys are generated securely and automatically. From a user’s perspective, it’s like having key management without the actual keys.

PROTECTING THE FINANCIAL SECTOR FROM CONSTANT ATTACKS

Companies working in finance are generally the most attacked group in the world.


Beyond just keeping encryption keys safe, financial organizations also have to worry about some pretty impressive data theft schemes. A full-scale breach can net millions of dollars for hackers just using the captured passwords and information, and much more when selling data like credit card numbers on the black market. As such, thieves will try just about anything to get their hands on that data, including trying to defeat physical security or getting an inside man to steal entire drives.

But stolen drives won’t do much good for hackers, even if an attacker is able to plug them into a new FlashArray enclosure. First off, all data on all drives is AES-256 encrypted, so a single drive separated from an array is going to be worthless. But even if that drive is plugged into a new array, it won’t work and won’t unlock because of the way Pure Storage runs their Purity Operating System. Using the Purity OS, each drive is given a unique password that is randomly generated and never leaves the Purity environment. That password is used to lock down each drive when not in use. Once generated, the codes are then uniquely scrambled and shared among all the drives in the array.

When the FlashArray needs to access data, it first samples all the drives to ensure their secret passwords are in place, and uses them to reconstruct the overall password. There has to be a quorum consisting of slightly more than half of the drives sharing the secret password present for any of them to unlock. Otherwise, the array can’t build the secret key required for use. Should someone steal one of the drives, the whole system would still work because a quorum would still be present, though its loss would be noted even if a drive was used to replace the missing one, since the new drive wouldn’t have part of the overall password. The stolen drive would never be able to unlock however, because it would never be a part of the original quorum again.

A new overall secret password and individual passwords for each drive are randomly generated every day as an added precaution. So a thief couldn’t slip a drive away every day, hoping to eventually build a quorum of their own because each drive would have one part of an entirely different secret key. This extra layer of security is unique to Pure Storage FlashArrays and thus makes it extra attractive to financial institutions trying to maintain an edge over attackers. And it requires no user or administrator intervention. The protection is built-in and automatic. Companies start making use of it as soon as they activate their FlashArray.

Last but far from least, the same robust automatic audit chain generation that makes FlashArray devices so useful in health care is also automatically active for the financial industry. Nobody, even IT administrators, can make changes to system configurations without a trail being created. Auditors can instantly see changes as they are being made, and still have access to them if needed for an investigation months or even years later.

PROTECTING THE FINANCIAL SECTOR FROM CONSTANT ATTACKS cont.

The protection is built-in and automatic. Companies start making use of it as soon as they activate their FlashArray.


BUILDING SECURE AND REDUNDANT STORAGE FOR FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Government doesn’t just require other entities to operate securely, they also impose quite a few regulations and mandatory best practices on themselves. And while those regulations can vary by state or even by department, in general, government at any level can only work with secure systems.

There are so many different regulations in government that it would be difficult if not impossible for one system out of the box to work with all of them. However, using a FlashArray is good place to start for any of those requirements. With full AES-256 encryption, role-based access control and automatic generation of audit trail information, it can provide a stable base for any agency to build upon, and likely would be all that some organizations need.

Where government is unique compared to other sectors is their requirement for continuous operations. Some agency programs are so important or deal with real-time applications such as air traffic control that they simply can’t have any downtime. Even at the state and local level, programs designed to serve the public can’t crash or be made unavailable. When that happens too often or for a long period of time, the issue becomes a political as well as a technical liability.

Pure Storage understands the need for continuous availably and as such, the FlashArray is built on a unique non-disruptive everything model with no single point of failure. Unlike other flash arrays that lump all of their storage into the same space,

the FlashArray’s drives are separated and redundant. There is never a need to power down to swap drives. Even in the unlikely event of a flash drive failure, system operations are not disrupted. The failed drive can easily be swapped out for a new one while the FlashArray is still running and serving up all its data to authorized users.

Having no single point of failure extends to every aspect of the FlashArray, even the controllers, which are completely stateless. Should a controller fail, all operations can be maintained by the backup controller with no loss of operations or downtime. Pure Storage can deliver a new controller onsite within four hours of the failure too. Once the replacement controller arrives, the old one is simply unplugged and the new one is cabled into place. Users won’t even know that a major component has failed, and operations can continue normally.

Because the clustered FlashArray controllers don’t store any persistent information, they can also be upgraded with new software and features without disrupting operations. The FlashArray is active from every port on two controllers, even though performance-wise, the array is only using one controller at a time. Should one controller fail, the second automatically takes over, keeping performance at 100 percent with no negative effects on any of the FlashArray’s users.

But that non-disruptive architecture is not just limited to hardware redundancy. Pure Storage has designed their Purity Operating System to ensure that the software driving the FlashArray can also compensate and eliminate any single

There are so many different regulations in government that it would be difficult if not impossible for one system out of the box to work with all of them.


BUILDING SECURE AND REDUNDANT STORAGE FOR FEDERAL, STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS cont.

point of failure. The array is able to do this because the OS is built specifically as a way to use RAID with flash. This solution fixes the three major problems that happen when trying to shoehorn flash drives into a RAID configuration that they were not originally designed to run.

Called RAID-3D, it’s RAID for pure flash drives. The first thing RAID-3D does is to eliminate problems associated with bit errors, device failure and variable performance levels. Starting with bit errors, they are the most annoying problem for most organizations trying to use flash with RAID. Flash drives are more vulnerable to returning incorrect data other than what was stored. Normally minor in nature, it nonetheless has

no place in government service that requires one hundred percent accuracy. RAID-3D uses a series of independent checksums along with dedicated parity to eliminate this problem. Any bit errors are instantly detected, healed and written around.

That same system of parity also eliminates the variable performance some organizations experience with solid state drives. The peaks and valleys in performance are associated with the standard RAID garbage collection mechanisms which tend to get clogged and reduce throughput. RAID-3D looks at this problem like any other point of failure and uses parity to work around all potential bottlenecks. The end result is consistently fast performance all the time.

And last but not least, although flash is much more reliable than traditional drives due to having no moving parts, drives can still fail for a variety of reasons. Most RAID controllers don’t handle flash drive failure very well, but RAID-3D ensures that no two pared drives can fail at the same time. If any drive in the array goes down for any reason, its data is served from a backup location while the OS re-builds and writes around the failing component within minutes. Users never see any performance hit and don’t ever lose data.

By enlisting a Pure Storage FlashArray, organizations across government can employ high security, fast performance and reliable continuous operations. Regardless of the circumstances, government agencies will know that their mission data is protected, efficient and always available.

By enlisting a Pure Storage FlashArray, organizations across government can employ high security, fast performance and reliable continuous operations.

Pure Storage, Inc.Twitter: @purestorage

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Pure Security 01.2

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