Security and Innovation Management

By: Rob Hoehn

Systems security is one of the top five concerns for business executives this year. In the past two years, we’ve had some very troubling and very public data breaches of systems that we use every day. So it’s no wonder that the government (and other sectors) are prioritizing security for cloud software this year. But why are they doing it? Well, there are four key reasons that security matters for innovation management systems in particular:

Data Matters. If you’re using a system like IdeaScale for the collection of ideas, vetting, and development, you want to make sure that the information in that system is accurate and up-to-date.

Intellectual Property. Many companies realize that the information in these systems (once developed) could lead to their market competitive advantage. If the developed ideas in the private part of the system go public, you stand to lose that advantage.

Personal Information. There are a lot of good laws and regulations around personal information and how protected it is on the internet. Anytime anyone participates in social collaboration software, this is a consideration.

Enterprise Systems Integration. Nowadays, systems like IdeaScale plug into a number of other systems (project management software, social software, etc). A vulnerability in one system could lead to at-risk exposure in other systems. That’s why any innovation management system has to be equal to the systems with which it interacts.

We discussed these ideas in a little more depth on the Centrify blog just a few weeks ago.

The government responded by creating an authorization program called FedRAMP. FedRAMP is an acronym for the “Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program,”which is “a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.”  This program helps government entities buy cloud services with confidence in the security levels of the services and their underlying software.

This means that innovation management software is subject to security controls, policies, and procedures that have withstood an intense multi-month audit and gained a recommendation for FedRAMP authorization in our auditor’s security assessment report.  And I’m pleased to report that IdeaScale now has an agency reviewing its FedRAMP offering and is on path to receive its first Agency Authorization early this fall.

To learn more about IdeaScale’s FedRAMP offering, read about it on our blog.

By Rob Hoehn