Corporate and IT auditors face an overwhelming amount of SQL query logs, each needing time consuming examination, that in turn must be interpreted in order to decipher and ascertain what happened, when, to whom, and with what consequences.

One of Align’s core strengths is its non-intrusive SQL sniffing, or monitoring, that occurs in the background without causing performance hits. This monitoring means that, rather than building a static log of transactions, personnel are actually flagged (via email or pager) as the pre-specified event occurs.

Because events are defined and pre-set at the outset, Align notifies designated administrators when triggered events occur. Auditors are placed in a position of strength, knowing their workflow is managed, logged, audited, and archived, and can more pro-actively address their enterprise’s needs.

Some of the more crucial challenges facing corporate and IT auditors on a daily basis are:

• Managing security rules, SQL conditions, database security configurations, data access audit logs, and rules regarding data views, virtual private databases, and field and column encryption/masking.
• Be able to verify and attest that data assets, data policies, and the inventories of data handling practices are being tracked, managed, and that appropriate audit mechanisms are in place.
• Track, manage, audit, and enforce policies regarding the access, use, distribution, storage, and transfer of enterprise data assets between employees, divisions, partners, and applications.

Align can benefit corporate and IT auditors by:

• Implementing a proactive rather than reactive method of data use monitoring, meaning that queries are passively monitored for violations as they happen.
• The identification and classification (meta-tagging) features of the Align 3.0 Policy Development Environment and Align Data-Policy Transaction Management agents allow policies, audit logs, permissions, and inventories to be managed and tracked according to a classification ontology that meets any organization’s needs. This enables easy reporting, auditing, and managing of complex or simple data policies at the data level.
• The Align Policy Development Environment is a policy development and management console including journaling, audit trails, request and approval tracking, that allows instant ‘what-if’ impact assessments and scenario planning, as well as performing policy and practice rollbacks. Segregated or federated policy models can be developed and deployed to address operational, jurisdictional, or functional programs.

If you would like to speak with a Synomos representative regarding Align please contact us.