London (UK): Varonis, the leading provider of comprehensive data governance software, is delighted to welcome Marathon IT Services as the latest member of its partner programme. Varonis’ Data Governance Suite completes Marathon’s portfolio allowing it to offer organisations a complete corporate IT information security service. Far too frequently organisations spend vast sums on securing the corporate infrastructure having failed to comprehend that most breaches are to do with people within the organisation and their data habits. In fact, a recent Varonis survey found that 67% of respondents say that senior management in their organisations either don’t know where all company data resides or are not sure.
With Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) - particularly mobile and tablet devices - and file synch services booming, organisations now have an extended perimeter which is open to potential data breaches. Files kept on third party cloud services can be lost, misplaced, accessed by unauthorised people or leave the company with the employee, causing data privacy and compliance issues. Varonis’ research revealed that 74% of organisations do not have a process for tracking which files have been placed on third party cloud digital collaboration and storage services.
Marathon’s approach is to create customised services that help reduce costs and improve the efficiency of IT systems. Marathon will combine Varonis’ suite with its professional services to offer data governance as a service, helping organisations to address the issue of securing and managing data and meet audit and compliance requirements. Both partners are looking forward to not just working together, but also supporting one another, in the battle to educate organisations of the significance of strong data governance and ring fencing these extended data perimeters.
Peter Speck, Consultant Director at Marathon IT Services explains, we are concerned that with a very proactive Information Commissioners Office (ICO) in the UK, organisations are at a high risk of data breach, theft and ICO fines without a good Data Governance strategy in place. Marathon offer a complete end to end service for our clients that includes educating and training the people we serve to ensure they stay fighting fit. Thankfully, this is something Varonis also identifies as a high priority and I’m convinced together we will not only offer a strong argument, but also able to deliver a compelling solution.”
David Gibson, VP of Strategy for Varonis adds, “Marathon IT Services’ ethos mirrors our own - to work in partnership with clients and understand their business requirements, to ensure they deliver a solution that meets and exceeds those requirements. We’ve seen for ourselves the work its team has already undertaken to raise awareness to the importance of good data governance. Varonis’ Data Governance Suite perfectly enhances its comprehensive portfolio and we’re confident that this is just the start of a long term strategic partnership, not only for Varonis, but also our joint clients.”
The Varonis Data Governance suite helps organisations manage and protect their unstructured and semi structured data—the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, media files and other business data in file servers, NAS devices, SharePoint and Exchange. It helps answer those urgent questions - who has access; who should and shouldn't have access; who uses their access and who’s abusing it; who owns the data; what is sensitive and exposed to risk. Having collected the metadata to answer these critical questions, the suite aligns critical business assets with their proper owners, and empowers them with intelligence to make decisions about access controls and appropriate use, that are then executed without IT intervention