Last February we celebrated in Barcelona and Madrid a new edition of our event “Boosts the competitiveness of your company” , this year focused on security and legal compliance, in the path of companies towards digital transformation. After the great attendance, the congratulations of all those who came and watching the polls (an average of 4.63 out of 5) we can not be more satisfied and proud of the tremendous success achieved in our event.
In this edition held in Barcelona at the Auditorium of La Pedrera and in Madrid at the Microsoft offices last February, more than 250 attendees had the opportunity to comprehensively discover not only how Microsoft’s cloud stimulates digital transformation, but very especially how it provides the tools to protect its users, confidential information and its infrastructure from security threats. And if that were not enough … the attendees could see how and what companies should do to comply in time with the new mandatory data protection law (GDPR).
The Microsoft executives, in their welcome speech, highlighted Softeng as one of the main partners with more knowledge and experience in solutions in the cloud, remembering the important awards they have given us lately and also highlighting our sensitivity and focus on the needs of companies in terms of compliance and security.
Next, we leave you a summary with the key aspects of the presentations:
Presentation 1: How to accelerate the digital transformation protecting your company and complying with the new regulations
Carlos and Imma, began their presentation explaining how technology has evolved from companies in which the infrastructure was On premise, to modern environments and digital transformation, where we find hybrid scenarios in which users work in the cloud and in mobility, and why this paradigm has opened new fronts of security risks and vulnerabilities.
They continued commenting that hackers have also evolved with increasingly serious, aggressive and sophisticated attacks, making security a priority since the measures they had until now (firewalls, antivirus …) are no longer enough to protect the company.
Imma Rasero, Partner & Customer Advisor and Carlos Colell, CEO of SOFTENG
Imma stressed that, in a moment of total transition to the cloud, being able to work from anywhere is very important but also surfaces grow from which we can be attacked by expanding to: Identity , devices , data and infrastructure .
In addition to the threats caused externally, Imma spoke about the so-called internal threats that are caused by human failures within the company itself and that, although not caused by hackers, cause greater impact and affect the same surfaces represented in the image .
It also provided a public list of companies that have suffered data leakage as well as specific numbers of various studies that showed the magnitude of the problem of the lack of security, including and quantifying the losses that it is assuming to companies without knowing it.
What is the relationship between security and the GDPR?
With this question Imma gave the floor to Carlos who began his part of the talk by talking about one of the main challenges that companies have for this 2018 , the GDPR . Carlos put into background the key aspects of the new regulation pointing out that a law that focuses on privacy must necessarily entail security with the maximum that there can be no privacy without security. Carlos then explained the security measures that companies must apply to comply with the new law, as well as the risks of not complying with the regulations.
How to know the degree of protection that companies currently have?
Carlos explained that our clients have an advisor in our CSP portal that shows exactly the level of security and instructions on how to improve it. Also, for those who are still not our clients, he asked them 5 questions:
- Are your users protected against phishing and Ransomware attacks?
- Do you know who accesses your data?
- Can you grant access to your data according to the risk and in real time?
- Can you detect and react quickly to a security breach?
- Can you protect your data on devices, cloud and in transit?
To conclude that, if the answer to most of them was no, it means that the degree of protection is practically nil.
How can your company achieve safety objectives and comply with regulations?
Carlos commented that the first step to improve security in companies and comply with the GDPR is to accelerate towards the cloud. Having everything integrated and centralized in the Microsoft cloud helps to be more secure in itself and offers the possibility of protecting us in a simpler, faster and more efficient way.
He then commented that once we are in the cloud, the recommended strategy to protect the main points of attack that have been discussed throughout his speech (Identity, applications and data, devices and infrastructure) is: PROTECT + DETECT + REACT, all with the security measures and tools that Microsoft and Softeng put at their clients’ reach.
To finish his presentation Carlos commented that both in the next presentation and in the demos that would come after the attendees would discover how Microsoft 365 is the solution to land all the comments in this paper.
Lecture 2: The modern workplace for collaboration and security needs: Discover the new Microsoft 365
This paper was led in Barcelona by Maureen Manubens -Modern Workplace Advisor of Microsoft- and in Madrid by Miguel Angel Cervera -Responsible for Microsoft 365 at Microsoft.
In it, they told us about the impact that organizations have on the new way of working using technology to promote growth, innovation and adapting to the new collaboration and communication needs of their employees, maintaining protection and compliance at all times. . For this, they told us about the solution to face this new way of working: Microsoft 365.
Microsoft 365 is the evolution of Office 365 that was born to encompass and simplify in a single product the modernization of the workplace of companies, including new tools for collaboration, security and legal compliance.
Demo Productivity: Discover the new modern workplace with Microsoft 365 and boost your productivity
We started the demo part with the session of our productivity and collaboration experts , Ramón Masuet and Claudia Casas. In it, they told us about the importance of productivity and collaboration to boost competitiveness in companies.
During their presentation they showed us how with Office 365, within Microsoft 365, companies can improve the productivity of their work teams with tools that help create, jointly edit documents, share, make simple meetings, etc … and also in an intelligent way with tools that help to make decisions and all this, in a safe way.
During their presentation they taught in a simple way and through a practical case, how to work with Teams as a work hub from which they taught us how they used Planner, Skype for Business, Yammer, OneDrive, SharePoint, Power Apps and even to work intelligently with Bots, Power BI and Delve.
Claudia Casas and Ramon Masuet, experts in productivity of SOFTENG
Security Demo: Protect your business thanks to Microsoft 365 and Azure
The security demo, starring Jordi Fernández, David Rangel and Álex Imbernon, all of them security experts from Softeng, was one of the most anticipated of the day along with compliance. The imminent arrival of the GDPR, information leaks due to employee errors and the increasingly aggressive and intelligent security attacks mean that these issues have been placed first in the concerns of companies.
In this lecture attendees could see in a practical way how they protected the company from the case study with Microsoft 365 and Azure. Jordi began by recalling the 4 attack surfaces commented on by Imma and Carlos in their presentation and their main vulnerabilities:
Jordi Fernández, David Rangel and Alex Imbernon, security experts at SOFTENG
Then, through a powerful demonstration, they showed us how each of Microsoft’s tools work to cope with and protect the main vulnerabilities of companies, based on the triple action that Carlos commented on in his presentation:
- To protect: The company of advanced cyber attacks
- Detect: Malicious or suspicious activities that may happen
- Respond: Quickly and effectively to an attack.
If you want to know in detail each of the security tools that were shown at the event and that Microsoft puts at your disposal, we invite you to visit our blog where you will find articles of each of the products.
Demo Legal compliance: Discover the 4 steps to comply with the new data protection law (GDPR)
The deadline to adapt to the new regulation of personal data processing (GDPR) comes to an end on May 25, 2018 and with the new law, in case of information leaks, beyond the loss of credibility among customers , fines of millions of euros are established. In this session our compliance specialists Marc Jordana and Miquel Castelló explained the two main objectives that the GDPR seeks:
- Provide individuals of the European Union with rights: Know what companies do with their personal data, how they treat these data, the right to delete their data, know for what purposes their data is used, etc …
- That the companies do an exercise of transparency: How they do the treatment of the personal data that they collect and store, the reasons why they collect those data, where they keep them, how they protect them, etc …
Marc Jordana and Miquel Castelló, experts in compliance and security of SOFTENG
Marc and Miquel showed us the 4 steps necessary to accelerate compliance and avoid the large fines , demands and impact on the reputation of the company :
- Detect: Know where are the personal data of employees, customers, suppliers, etc …
- Manage: Relocate these data to the appropriate place and apply the necessary organizational measures to control access to data internally.
- Protect: Prior to data processing, companies must assess the risks and determine the procedures to be followed to protect them, that is, apply technological measures to protect access and encryption of personal data.
- Inform: First, companies must be prepared to be able to inform the protection agency in case of audit of where the data is and how they are protected and secondly and not least, companies must be able to respond to individual claims of people, for example, request for access to data, rectification or deletion, among others.
Through a fantastic demonstration and in a practical and easy way, Marc demonstrated how with the security and compliance tools of Microsoft 365 companies can comply with the new law:
- Protecting personal data through the security tools that encrypt, classify the data and establishing policies to prevent information leaks.
- Demonstrating risk mitigation measures with tools that detect and respond in case of attacks.
- In case of a security breach, have the means to report them to the data protection agency in less than 72 hours.
During his presentation, Marc showed the attendees that Softeng customers have it easier to accelerate their compliance since in addition to having all the Microsoft compliance tools, within their CSP portal with which they manage their subscriptions, Softeng has developed an advisor that helps them assess safety and with recommendations that facilitate their compliance process.
Final brooch
To end the day, attendees had the opportunity to participate in a round table with our experts in security, productivity, compliance, as well as with our legal experts, in which they were able to resolve all their doubts and later, enjoy a buffet lunch at which they could do networking with the rest of the guests and exchange doubts and experience with specialists from both Microsoft and Softeng.
Assistants auditorium La Pedrera – Barcelona Attendees Auditorio Oficinas de Microsoft – Madrid
Lunch auditorium La Pedrera – Barcelona Acting magician Auditorio Oficinas de Microsoft – Madrid
The SOFTENG team that participated in the event
As a final note, we would like to remember the appointment with which your presentation ended our CEO, Carlos Colell:
“The cloud gives you a competitive advantage, ALSO in Security and Compliance”
And thanks to all the attendees! both because of their participation and because of the great results we have obtained in the surveys, because they encourage us to continue working and striving to offer the best service and quality.
For all those people who were unable to attend due to lack of places and for all those who want to know the latest news of Microsoft Cloud solutions, we will announce the dates of the next edition shortly
And for those of you who have been left wanting to know more, we invite you to contact us to discover how we can help you protect your company . Want to know more?