Overview
This organization (renamed ABC Bio for this case study) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company translating genetic intelligence into the development of therapies for patients affected by certain disorders.
The Challenge
The majority of organizations in the biotechnology vertical, like ABC Bio, face several challenges for data protection. First, the data scientists in the lab environment are utilizing numerous lab applications running on various Operating System (OS) types and versions. Second, many of the data scientists have isolated data stores for their lab data based on lab application recommendations, which could include Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, Box, DropBox, MS365 or other repository. Third, partly a result of the 2020 COVID pandemic and in part in the search for the best talent regardless of geography, many employees are fully remote working from home offices. Fourth, the majority of employees in ABC Bio are scientists or bioinformaticians with little to no personnel dedicated to Information Technology (IT) or IT Security. Last, the market in which ABC Bio works is regulated and is subject to numerous compliance regulations that specify data security controls.
A fast-growing firm dealing with highly sensitive data, ABC Bio looked was in need of protecting its data whether in the lab, in their AWS cloud or on user workstations, having visibility to potential threats at all times. ABC Bio evaluated options for improving their overall data security posture. Following a standardized security framework, this process included review and development of corporate security policies, definition and improvement of process, implementation of data security protection technologies and a formalized security threat detection service. and incident response plan.
The Solution
Recognizing that best practice data security truly is a layered approach, ABC Bio engaged with PTP to deliver security protection and detection services to fill gaps from necessary controls where they did not have the personnel, technology or process. PTP’s PeakPlus SECURE suite of services included the following elements for ABC Bio.
AWS Security Best Practices Monitoring & Compliance Monitoring
Leveraging PTP’s chosen cloud management platform, CloudCheckr, PTP deployed the tools for ABC Bio’s AWS environment to provide consistent reporting against the services and configurations in their environment versus industry best practices. The compliance reporting also maps controls to numerous compliance guidelines so at any time ABC Bio has the visibility to where issues or non-compliance may exist.
Monitor & Triage Security Events
Addressing the need to correlate events from disparate datasources into a single platform for 24x7x365 monitoring and triage, PTP deployed it’s AWS-based Monitoring and Triage Security Events solution, Fluency. The Fluency next-generation SIEM ingests logs from ABC Bio’s AWS Cloud via CloudTrail, logs from endpoint security tools, on-premises network tools and additional critical information sources suce as Active Directory. Once configured, the SOC team at PTP can leverage the rules automation and Machine Learning from Fluency to quickly identify anomalous behavior, creating a security incident ticket and directing that to the SOC for triage, analysis and escalation if validated.
AWS services implemented as part of the solution:
CloudFormation, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, AWS Config, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), VPN Gateway, AWS Key Management Service (KMS), Amazon Inspector and AWS Certificate Manager.
Results
The compliance team at ABC Bio, leveraging the on-demand compliance reporting from PTP’s CloudCheckr solution, drastically reduced the amount of time in readiness preparation and reporting for internal and external compliance audits. The reporting is available to be delivered on schedule as well as on-demand, including more than 20 key compliance frameworks.
Additionally, due to PTP’s services investment in people and tools for their Monitor and Triage Security Events service, ABC Bio was able to deploy a 24x7x365 security monitoring solution at a fraction of the cost of building the solution internally. This service is integrated into ABC Bio’s Incident Response Plan with runbooks built for notification and escalations of validated security incidents.
Partnering with PTP, who is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with the Life Sciences Competency and cybersecurity expertise, ABC Bio can focus their efforts on the science of bringing valuable treatments to market while PTP’s PeakPlus service helps manage the security of their data in AWS as well as on user devices, which AWS outlines in the Share Responsibility Model.