Covisint Tells Pharma How To Avoid 'Wikileaks-like Disaster'
The Covisint business unit of Detroit's Compuware Corp. (Nasdaq: CPWR) shared tips on keeping information secure with the pharmaceutical industry this week at the Drug Information Association's annual Electronic Document Management in National Harbor, Md.
Covisint Chief Security Officer David Miller said the drug industry could learn from Covisint's information security engagements in the manufacturing and automotive industries to make sure information stays where it's supposed to be.
Miller shared information on how to use information, regardless of where it resides or the technical sophistication of either party; how to
develop flexible infrastructures that accommodate process changes and technology advancements; how to enable real-time responsiveness; and, how to provide for adaptive security measures.
In his keynote, Miller emphasized the complexity of today's security challenges, highlighting how the definition of enterprise security has expanded now to include a significant amount of users in the extended enterprise. Companies have traditionally responded, Miller noted, by just enlarging the perimeter of enterprise security.
"That approach," Miller observed, "just enables more people to have access to more information, expanding the security problem by keeping the bad guys in and the good guys out."
Other typical techniques and fixes, he added, only afford stopgap benefits until a rogue user determines a "work-around," such as in the current Wikileaks controversy, where a low-level staffer simply walked out with key information on a music CD.
"What pharma needs is a federated model -- an information ecosystem -- that monitors, cleanses and transfers the data to meet changing standards," Miller said. "But, to do this, the industry must look to others that have already successfully managed complex data access and facilitated trust relationships. Covisint solved this type of problem for the automotive and manufacturing industries more than a decade ago and brought successful federation capabilities to healthcare for the past five years."
Managing information in a completely electronic environment and enabling the current and future electronic regulatory submission standards landscape are key focuses of this year's DIA event.
Covisint provides secure communication and collaboration across a wide variety of industries. The Covisint ExchangeLink platform provides industry-specific services for identity management, collaborative portals and data exchange, as well as a third-party application marketplace. Learn more at www.covisint.com.
