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Strengthening Data Governance and Security for a Technology Firm

Focus Areas
Data Governance Frameworks
Cloud Security Architecture
Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Business Problem
A technology firm delivering AI-driven business analytics platforms was facing growing concerns around data privacy, regulatory compliance, and unauthorized data access. As the company expanded into regulated markets, its decentralized data management practices and inconsistent security configurations became a liability. Leadership needed to establish a comprehensive data governance strategy that ensured security, compliance, and trust—without slowing down innovation.
Key challenges:
Uncontrolled Data Access: Excessive permissions and lack of RBAC led to data exposure risks.
Siloed Data Policies: Teams maintained disparate security practices across departments and clouds.
Lack of Auditability: Data usage and access logs were incomplete or inconsistent.
Non-Compliance Risk: Data storage and retention policies did not meet SOC 2, GDPR, or HIPAA standards.
Encryption Gaps: Sensitive datasets were not consistently encrypted at rest and in transit.
The Approach
Curate partnered with the technology firm to implement an end-to-end data governance and security framework. The goal was to centralize data controls, improve access visibility, and meet regulatory standards—while maintaining operational agility.
Key components of the solution:
Discovery and Requirements Gathering:
Security Posture Assessment: Evaluated current cloud configurations, IAM policies, and encryption standards.
Data Inventory and Classification: Identified critical and sensitive data assets across cloud platforms.
Compliance Gap Analysis: Compared existing controls against SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA requirements.
Stakeholder Workshops: Engaged security, legal, and engineering teams to align on policies and objectives.
Solution Design and Implementation:
Centralized Data Governance:
Established unified data access policies using AWS Lake Formation and Google Data Catalog.
Created data classification tags for PII, financial, and operational datasets.
Access Management & Policy Enforcement:
Designed fine-grained role-based access control (RBAC) with automated policy enforcement.
Integrated single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) using Okta and Azure AD.
Auditability and Monitoring:
Enabled centralized logging of data access using AWS CloudTrail, GCP Audit Logs, and SIEM tools.
Deployed GuardDuty and Security Command Center for threat detection and alerting.
Data Encryption and Key Management:
Enforced end-to-end encryption using customer-managed keys (CMKs) and KMS across all environments.
Integrated Vault for secret rotation, storage, and access control.
Compliance Automation:
Implemented automated compliance scanning with tools like Prisma Cloud and Evident.io.
Created dashboards and reports for SOC 2, GDPR, and HIPAA audit readiness.
Process Optimization and Change Management:
Policy-as-Code: Applied OPA/Gatekeeper to enforce security and governance controls in CI/CD workflows.
Data Access Workflows: Built automated approval workflows for accessing sensitive datasets.
Training and Awareness: Delivered targeted training sessions on data handling, privacy, and security policies.
Incident Response Readiness: Developed breach response playbooks and ran tabletop exercises.
Business Outcomes
Stronger Data Security Controls
Sensitive data was encrypted and access was strictly governed using least-privilege policies.
Compliance-Ready Posture
The firm passed its first SOC 2 Type II audit and achieved GDPR alignment with minimal remediation.
Improved Visibility and Accountability
Centralized audit logs and dashboards provided real-time insights into data access and usage.
Sample KPIs
Here’s a quick summary of the kinds of KPI’s and goals teams were working towards**:
Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
---|---|---|---|
Sensitive data encrypted | 65% | 100% | 35% improvement |
IAM policy violations | 12/month | 1/month | 92% reduction |
Time to provision data access | 3 days | 1 hour | 95% faster |
Compliance audit findings (SOC 2) | 14 issue | 2 issue | 86% fewer issues |
Unauthorized access incidents/year | 6 | 0 | 100% elimination |
Customer Value
Security-First Culture
Integrated security and governance without hindering product development.
Future-Ready Governance
The architecture supports future compliance expansions and cross-border data policies.
Sample Skills of Resources
Cloud Security Architects: Designed multi-cloud IAM and encryption strategies.
Governance Specialists: Implemented classification, lifecycle policies, and compliance automation.
DevSecOps Engineers: Integrated policy-as-code and vulnerability scanning into CI/CD.
SREs: Operationalized monitoring and alerting for security incidents.
Risk & Compliance Analysts: Mapped controls to regulatory frameworks and guided audit readiness.
Tools & Technologies
Cloud Platforms: AWS, GCP, Azure
IAM & SSO: Okta, Azure AD, AWS IAM
Encryption & Secrets: KMS, Vault, AWS Macie
Logging & SIEM: CloudTrail, GCP Audit Logs, Splunk
Compliance Tools: Prisma Cloud, Drata
Policy Enforcement: OPA, Gatekeeper, Terraform Sentinel

Conclusion
By adopting a robust data governance and security strategy, the technology firm transformed its operations to meet modern privacy standards and compliance requirements. Curate’s approach combined automation, policy enforcement, and real-time visibility to build a secure, audit-ready environment—empowering the business to scale with confidence in data integrity and protection.
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