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Varonis Data security platform helps organisations prepare for POPI


Johannesburg, 13 Apr 2017

Varonis Systems (NASDAQ:VRNS), a leading provider of software solutions that protect data from insider threats and cyberattacks, announced that its award winning Data Security Platform (DSP) assists in driving readiness for the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI) as organisations await the South African President's proclamation of a commencement date.

The Varonis DSP helps organisations secure personal information as outlined in POPI by identifying and mitigating exposure of sensitive data, automating access and retention processes to secure enterprise data and detecting and alerting on deviations from known behavioural baselines with regards to accessing that data.

"Early action is essential to incorporating the day-to-day security requirements of the POPI legislation into existing business processes, end user training and network solutions. The Varonis Data Security Platform is helping organisations and businesses identify, lock down and monitor access to the files and emails that contain sensitive information," said Jim O'Boyle, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Varonis. "Everyone will be on the clock once the effective date is announced, and Varonis is uniquely positioned to help organisations build, deploy and enforce a data governance strategy."

Businesses and organisations operating in South Africa will have one year from the commencement date to comply with the regulations. POPI defines how information may be retained and processed and applies to all holders of qualifying information without regard to industry (Ch. 2.3.c). POPI addresses a number of distinct data management issues within the scope of what it defines as personal information, including securing the integrity of this information from loss, unauthorised destruction, unlawful access or processing. The Act also establishes an information regulator to oversee information management policies and enforcement in South Africa.

The Varonis DSP identifies files containing personal information, and it determines who has access to it, who is using it and who should be responsible. The platform allows organisations to unite all parties responsible for data security including data owners, auditors, data users and IT around the same set of information and policies governing access, and it allows organisations to continually monitor the access framework in order to make changes and optimise both for compliance and for continuous enforcement of warranted access. The DSP also recommends the revocation of permissions to data for those users who do not have a business need to the data, generates reports showing the history of permission revocations and the percentages by which overly permissive access was reduced. Furthermore, the Varonis platform detects suspicious activity and prevents data breaches across disparate platforms using advanced behavioural analytics, visualizes risk and prioritises investigation.

Additional Resources:
* For more information about how Varonis addresses the POPI legislation, please visit www.varonis.com/learn/south-african-ppi-compliance-requirements-for-it/.
* For more information on Varonis' Data Security Platform, please visit www.varonis.com.
* Visit its blog, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Podcast and YouTube.

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Varonis

Varonis is a leading provider of software solutions that protect data from insider threats and cyber attacks. Through an innovative software platform, Varonis allows organisations to analyse, secure, manage, and migrate their volumes of unstructured data. Varonis specialises in file and e-mail systems that store valuable spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, audio and video files, e-mails, and text. This rapidly growing data often contains an enterprise's financial information, product plans, strategic initiatives, intellectual property, and confidential employee, customer or patient records. IT and business personnel deploy Varonis software for a variety of use cases, including data security, governance and compliance, user behavior analytics, archiving, search, and file synchronisation and sharing. With offices and partners worldwide, Varonis had approximately 5 350 customers as of 31 December 2016, spanning leading firms in financial services, healthcare, public, industrial, insurance, energy and utilities, media and entertainment, consumer and retail, technology and education sectors.

Editorial contacts

Jennifer LuPiba
Varonis
(614) 338 9889
jlupiba@varonis.com